Of Mortal Coils and Faulty Angels Season 3
by hoorayforsawyer
Summary: What happens when Sawyer, Kate and Jack are witness to each others torment at the hands of the Others? Who will make it off the Island, and how far will Dharma go to get them back...? Angsty, haunting and well worth a read. Come on in!
1. Of Mortal Coils and Faulty Angels

**Chapter 1**

**Of Mortal Coils and Faulty Angels**

When the damn pain ebbs away enough for rational thought to start seeping its way back into his head, Sawyer's first thought is

_son of a bitch__ my head_

Hot on the heels of that little gem are the pearls of wisdom

_christ I need to take a leak_

and

_Jesus I'm with the angels_

Because as his eyes gradually focus in, through the darkness and the stench of putrifying plants, and the dull firey pain, they find a face staring down at him with an expression of raw, almost primal fear. He wonders in these moments if he really has just taken a running dive off this godforsaken mortal coil. If so, he muses with tired triumph as his mind drifts far away from his aching mess of a body, ain't no more than he deserves.

But something don't feel right here. Something eats away inside of him, won't let go

_wake up_

like a tiny flea in the back of his mind,

_wake UP_

that refuses to be squelched, told 'game over baby', goodbye and goodnight. He's sought death for so long, so why in hell does it bring such a lousy cramp of bitterness now, such a glut of unfulfilment? Moreover, God's gotta reap himself some new angels! This one's damn near crying all over him. Just his luck to get himself a faulty angel -- maybe this is God's little backhander at him for being such a smartass all his life. Where's the gal's damn halo and harp? She's covered in dirt too, by looks of it -- and something else.

_what IS that?_

Something dark, down the side of her face --  
Suddenly, pressure. He can feel it on his hand. And when he opens his eyes again, scared moss green ones plead back at him, not to slip back into the darkness -  
Not to leave her alone --

_blood_

He comes back to himself enough to realize --

_BLOOD! The angels bleeding, Oh Lord, Holy s_--

he's delusional, and the pain rises up to greet him, and its Kate, Freckles is staring down at him, tough as nails Kate who'd rather stick pins in her eyes than show how she feels is crying, crying _hard_ -- and her face --

_what in hell is happening here _

-- her face is coated in _blood_.

* * *

The blood is insignificant -- in fact, Kate has no idea how bad her head is bleeding. She doesn't care. 

Jack had been taken. Her heart pounded painfully and the despair threatened to overcome her all at once -- damn Sawyer for trying to overcome the Guard! What in hell good would it have done if he'd escaped? _He'd have left you,_ her mind snipes at her, running itself ragged, _you should have known he would. Eveybody does little Katie! In the end, its only a matter of time._

So who knew where in hell Sawyer was -- when the fight had happened, the Others had separated them and taken them off in different directions. The fear had taken over when Kate heard Jack being dragged away from her, and Sawyer being beaten --

_What if they killed him _

Now, she has lost count of how long it has been since she was thrown in this miserable hole which passed as a holding cell. When she had been lead in and ordered to kneel, the thick black cloth of the foul bag over her head which had been steadily suffocating her was ripped off. She didn't know what to expect -- a confrontation with the others, Henry Gale, more questions -- but not this. Not more darkness -- and not to be _alone_.

Jack and Sawyer were gone. She was in here, in the dark, alone.

Ever since Kate was little, she hated the darkness. Bad things happened then, which she had no control over and would alway seem like a distant nightmare the next day -- and as she grew, those nightmares never receeded, instead they morphed, grew right along with her in the darkest recesses of her mind. Even here on the island, she slept close by the campfire every night.

Things were threatening to creep back around the edges. Half images and leering faces from a childhood scarred by pain and loneliness, shoved deep down to the bottomost pits of her soul. She had bricked them over, tried to bury them -- she could get through the night because there was always the day, the sun always _rose_ --

But the darkness beneath the cowl, she's never known anything like it. Here, there is no day. Just the cowl with its stomach churning stench of gasoline and hemp, blacking out the sun and fueling her hysteria gleefully --

_I cant be locked in I CANT be_

And even with the bag torn from her head, the light is still not there. The blackness is as complete as before, a leaden blanket which settles over her in it's deathly cloak. Just as she tries to keep a hold of herself as the footsteps of her captors fall away from her, as keys jangle in a distant lock she feels the sick glut of panic trilling through her mind

_I CANT BE LOCKED IN I --_

Whimpering in a fear she will not allow herself to succumb to, she gropes blindly, arms outstretched feeling for wall, floor, ceiling -- Her leg suddenly connects with an unyeilding shape on the floor and as she falls, she see's stars. Her head explodes in a dazzling supernova of pain -- and here's the light, it pours forth now behind her clenched eyelids. It is only the sound of a soft moan which stops her slipping gratefully from this world of blackness into her own private and safe world of dark unconciousness --

That soft moan again -- and doggedly looking past her pain, she hauls herself onto her elbows and peers into a face she'd given up on, marked for dead.

"Sawyer -- _wake up --!" _Nothing. No response at all, just dead weight, and now Kates fear rushes back at her with full force, redoubled in its firey strength.

_He's gone, little Katherine's alone again!_

But she refuses to believe that. Suddenly her survival instincts slam into gear and her instinctive reaction is to do something to _help_. She checks his pulse, airways, listens for his heart, and each slowing beat gradually becomes the all encompasing rhythm of this dark night. Against her will, she is muttering, "Wake up... Sawyer, _wake UP--" _Her hand fiinds his, laces through his rough, calloused fingers and squeezes tight, willing him to respond -- but he is fading. And as her panic finally overcomes her fragile defences, scalding tears burn down her cheeks, and her plea is rendered a furious whisper,

"Sawyer -- Sawyer, _please _--"

Eyelashes flicker against bloody skin. Kate holds her breath -- as Sawyer lets out a low, angry moan. She almost wilts with relief, the smile which creases her face eclipsing the pain and tears for a blessed moment.

"Sawyer? Sawyer!" She shakes him a little for good measure and with an indignant grunt he cuffs her off.

"God's gonna send me burning for this one. Hell, only a Ford could make an angel bleed..."

Kate shoots him a quizzical look through the darkness as he clambers up onto his elbows -- and she notices a deep red needle wound on Sawyers arm.

"What... what did they _do_ to you...?"

He gazes disconnectedly at his arm like it don't belong to him. Certainly don't feel like the damn thing does. "Needle." He sighs dazedly, and Kate looks to him fearfully.

"A needle? What did they inject you with?" But Sawyer's head is lolling forwards onto his chest, eyes fighting to slip back closed...

On her touch he reacts as though repellled by her. "It's fine!" He slurs, "Peachy! I'm just -- I never been better --" He goes to stand and Kate instinctively tries to help him -- but he pushes her away. "I don't need your help mamsita! I got this -- " His eyes flicker -- and roll back, " -- covered."

He falls heavily and she sits beside him. Resigning herself to the wait for whatever the Others shot him up with to wear off, her thoughts turn outwards, travel far away...

_... where's Jack?_

* * *

**PLEASE BE KIND ENOUGH TO REVIEW! The story is 39 Chapters long, so please read on...!**


	2. How the mighty have fallen

**Chapter 2**

**How the Mighty have Fallen**

Putting one foot in front of the other right now is perhaps the hardest thing Jack has ever had to do.

He has led a good life, against most people's standards – he has known love, he has given the best years of his life so far to the medical profession, and he has rested on an easy conscience most nights. Sure, he's known guilt, he's known pain – no matter how much that arrogant redneck may disagree, Jack knows pain. His pain came, in his past, from that age old killer, love. But he has caused it – he has never truly felt before how love twists things, like a burning dagger. He felt it shoot through him today, for the first time, unwanted and unbidden as it was –

When that fool Sawyer had tried to give his captor the jump, Jack had known instantly that things were going from bad to worse. And when they were separated, just moments before the bag was shoved over his head, Jack had known with a sick surge that Kate would be locked up, alone, in the dark – who knows what they could do to her -- and that age old killer had gone for his jugular, possesing him with its fury.

So he'd struggled, but when he heard Sawyer's screams, and the crunching of fist to jaw, elbow to jaw, bones crunching, he knew it was futile. He hear his mouth running overtime, pleading from his safe corner of logic, rationality, sense -- but inside, he knew.

There would be no easy way out of this…

And now he is here, worse doesn't even cover it… because where Jack is standing, worse is another ballgame away from here. When the bag had been ripped from his head, he thought for a wild moment he had gone blind. The intensity of the light pouring into his eyes after the choking blackness of the bag nearly made him faint, and the air was so thick with the reek of disinfectant his vision swam with nausea.

_All white – so much white -- _

The world seemed to be made up of nothing else. But as his eyes darted around in panic, he struggled to keep his nerve… and as his eyes blearily focused, he found he was in a gleaming silver and white laboratory.

Mr Friendly stands in front of him now, sans beard with his chunky arms folded before him. And Jesus Christ, is that a _butchers apron he's wearing…!_

Mr Friendly asks the question again. Jack still can't process it.

Because tall displays of jagged equipment beep around the fluoroscopy table in the centre of the room, machines Jack has never seen before – on quick glances he thinks he can make out some kind of souped up cardiograph –

"Get on the table. Do it now, or we'll knock you out. And you don't wanna try my patience, son."

"Not until you tell me why I should." He bravely keeps the tremor from his voice, but can't hide the gleaming panic in his eyes. "What is this place? Where are my friends, _what have you done with them –!"_

The two Men who manhandled him inside swoop in, and grapple him to the table –

_"Why are you doing this? Who are you people!"_

As they strap his hands down, the high, steady whine of electricity begins to throb through the alien machines surrounding him, pulsating through the air, nails on a blackboard, horrific –

"Wait!" Jack cries, struggling, "Stop -- for Gods sake _what do you want!"_

Mr Friendly guffaws in his face, as he presses electrodes to Jacks forehead,

"Don't you fret now. Its all part of the plan, Jacky-boy! You just relax now…"

"Relax --!" Jack cries in hysteria, "Get these things _OFF of me –!"_

"Now that's not very forthcoming, is it?"

That voice. Sneaky and conniving, and oh so clever… bracing himself, Jack looks up to a familiar leer.

"Oh my," Henry Gale smiles down with that familiar madman's distance in his eyes, "Oh, how the mighty have fallen, Jack…"

"Henry," Jack pleads, as the machines whir and build into an all enveloping roar --  
_"Henry, don't DO THIS --"_

* * *

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	3. The Blue Room

**Chapter 3**

**The Blue Room**

When Sawyer comes back to himself (_again_, goddamnit), he feels a little more together. In much more _pain_, but hell, at least he can think straight. Or so he thought, until he tried wrapping his tongue around –

"Whunf na ell ahh we…." Christ, this was proving harder than he thought. And amongst all the various wonderful little oceans of pain swelling about his body, the most prominent stabbing sensation is coming from his arm. From a needle shaped dot inside his elbow... and with the sensation of a freight train steaming into a station, the memory rams home – he'd given the Guards hell. And the only way the lousy son-of-a-bitch could beat him was fightin' dirty – stabbing him with god knows what. Not that Sawyer was above chucking a handy handful of sand in the eyes or utilising his pearly whites to best effect, but stabbing him with a sleeping drug was just plain _low_…

Scrubbing at his head and groaning in indignant pain, he sits, and a shape morphs out of the darkness. He immediately scuttles back on his ass, heart racing, longing for the soothing feel of the 9mm in his grip. The figure kneels before him and he instinctively tackles it – he'll be damned if he's going down without a _fight_ –

"Sawyer stop --!"

_What in hell!_

He pulls back incredulously to see Kate staring right back up, breath coming hot and fast on his face. And here come the memories of their oh-so-eventful past hours, rushing back up to smirk at him some. "What in hell are you tryin' to do to me Freckles!"

"There's somebody outside – I can _hear_ them --" She insists, breath a rush on his face. Sawyer freezes a moment, still straddling her. Listens hard.

"I don't hear anything." He blusters dismissively, "Where in hell _are_ we any --" Kate clamps her hand over his mouth, eyes burst wide, and in the silence which follows, stealthy footsteps slink away…

_"You see?"_ Her eyes pierce his, and for the first time he notices her weight beneath him is trembling, rigid with fear. Holy shit, why hadn't he noticed before? He could kick himself.

"Freckles... you're _bleedin' --"_ He stutters, gently wiping at the blood drying on her temple and cheek.

"So are you." She throws back, as though _bleeding_ is somehow a sign of weakness nowadays. She still tries to compete, even now, and whilst a scathing rebuttal rises in his throat, he chokes it back down. God how she'd hate him if she knew he'd seen tears, tears from the Ice Maiden Freckles. Hell, maybe he'd dreamed it. It's be a snowy day in Hell when Kate cried over his sorry ass.

Looking up at him, Kate's heartbeat races as her mind leaps back to another time, when they had been in a similar position. Back when they had barely known each other, back where it was warm, and the sun beat down like hammers. She remembers looking up to him then, wrestling with him like a wildcat, and the searing disgust which she told herself she felt for him. Which she never believed. It's the same now. Will they ever get past this god-awful cat and mouse game, this fruitless struggle for a power neither fully knows how to wield?

But there is a difference in her. She realizes suddenly, his weight on top of her no longer instigates her knee jerk reaction of a swift knee to the groin or a butt of the head. No… its strangely… comforting.

Suddenly spine chilling screams reverberate through the complex outside of the cell.

Kate and Sawyer freeze together in united shock. Screams like Kate has never heard, peals of raw pain, shrieks of agony that go right through her HEAD – and Sawyer is talking to her, _shaking her_ –

_"Kate – KATE!" _Her eyes fly to him -- can just make out his face, carved with deep worry and shadow in the dark. _"Where's Jack?"_

She looks to him numbly, and her hands just rise to her ears in reply. She is good at disconnecting – really good at just retreating inside her head to a safer place when the things happening before her cross the line, threaten to hurt her…

The room she goes to in her mind is blue. It is only small, nothing special, but in the time-worn, sparse furniture which lines its edges holds the soul and pains of a lifetime. It has always been this way. Whenever that vacant look steals into her eyes, she retreats deep inside, to the blue room, to stare out the windows as the bad things happen, and it doesn't hurt her, its okay, because it is happening to someone else…

As the screams cut out with an ominous swiftness, Sawyer watches that terrible empty gaze lay claim to Kate's eyes. It's always chilled him, and now it's almost more than he can bear – to be trapped in this hellish place is bad enough, but alone, without anyone to stand up with, be _strong_ with – the thought fills him with dread. But he doesn't know how to even begin shaking her out of this...

_Jack would know_, his mind snipes viciously. That's right, he'd be able to talk her right out of this, using that damn black magic voodoo way he had of miraculously smoothing everything over…

_She drew the short straw when she got left with you, little Jimmy Ford,_ he hears, as his age old complex comes crashing into gear,

_You don't help people. It's not in your nature. _

He despises that voice, as he sits back and the darkness swallows Kate whole, leaving him alone again, alone and far away from her,

_You'll be the death of her._


	4. Magic words for Curly Sue

**Chapter 4**

**Magic words for Curly Sue**

Sawyer has lost all notion of time. How long has he sat, aching and crouched against the wall with Kate's mane cradled in his lap, her rogue curls tickling his arms? He doesn't know. But steadily, he has felt a subtle shift in her body, like all the bones are relaxing back into their proper stance, the fear which has done a pretty remarkable job of locking her away someplace far away, gradually letting up.

The waiting is hell. What if something inside her has… snapped? Hell, life on Craphole Island was never a barrel of laughs at the best of times, but maybe this final trick has done gone and pushed her over the edge.

The mere thought strikes so many opposing emotions in him he's not quite sure which to run with first. Superwoman Kate, she of a hundred comebacks and many more rocks to throw at him, crack? Is he nuts? Lord in Heaven, he wouldn't believe it if she was lying here against him, huddled in the dark, like some gouged out shell of the spunky gal who had straight near K'O'ed him for her damn flight case. Grumpily he realizes, he never did find out what was so damn important about the thing.

He tries talking to her for awhile, but patience never was a strong Ford trait, and he quickly grows frustrated with her silence. Is she in some kind of trance, is there some kind of magic word which will snap her out of this? Hell, he's tried all of them he can think of!

So now he just sits. Waits. Ain't no way out of this place, and definitely ain't no way Freckles is looking like she's gonna be upwardly mobile anytime soon. The voices have returned, mocking him in his vigil over Kate's lifeless body, and they have never been so vicious, they cut him to the bone. So he sits, and to block out the voices he is hearing --

_You're useless James, a parasite, a worthless specimen who'll never know the meaning of the word man_

-- he fixes his mind on Kate instead. And as a drowning man will cling onto a life preserver with every ounce of his failing life, Sawyer clings onto her in the darkness, never feeling more alone yet more complete. He counts the freckles on her face through the gloom, makes out to fifty-six then realizes he has been falling asleep so starts again.

_You can't protect her_

And the voices grow ever stronger now, like they are not his own anymore –

_You can't protect her and you can't save her _

All the things he has ever done to hurt her rush up to haunt him gleefully, the times he had tricked her, betrayed her

_Good thing you don't hate me Freckles_

_Ain't nothing worth staying for_

_Now what's Kate doing with poor Joanna's ID? Could it be she'd do just about anything to get on that raft?_

_I've been with girls like you_

_Sorry don't suit me. You cornered me, Freckles. I did what I had to._

He looks down at her and wishes he could say sorry. But the real tragedy in this whole mess of a situation isn't that he may never get the chance to say sorry to her – the tragedy is, is that even if he got the chance, he knows he _won't_ say it.

_Sorry don't suit me. _

So when Kate pivots up right with a strangled gasp, he damn near coughs up his heart. She turns to him slowly, eyes wide… but somehow calmer. They have not lost their manic light, but he senses somehow that she has found her peace, somewhere inside.

"You okay there Curly Sue?" The tremble in his voice surprises him, "Caus' I was just getting' ready to start charging a hotel fee for use of my legs."

"We're still here." Her voice is detached and sluggish, as though she is talking from a great distance. "It was supposed to be a dream. I wake up and it's daytime. That's how it works, that's how it _always_ works. Go to sleep, wake up in the light."

Sawyer's heart fluctuates painfully in his chest. It's like seeing Kate when she was five years old, with her logic all screwed up and her defences down and it damn near kills him suddenly – after everything she's been through, _she shouldn't be here. _

"Ain't light yet, Freckles…" He has to damn near eat the lousy lump in his throat. He should be giving her hope! He's useless at this kind of thing, and she's looking at him like he's just kicked a puppy, eyes wide oceans of pure despair.

When he looks back on those dark times, he'll always wish he could somehow have found the words to comfort her then. And it wasn't just because he'd never seen anyone so hopelessly lost and in need of a few kind words in his life, it wasn't just the dull fire which ached away at his already battered heart, or the way time seemed to stand still in wait of his words… but it was the almost tangible knowledge that struck him, that just as much as she needed to hear those words, he needed to _say_ them. He needed to rid himself of this sick stone which weighted down his insides, find the words to comfort her, _show_ himself to her, that he wasn't as inept and emotionally crippled as everyone believed, that his past hadn't scarred him irreversibly, or made human connection impossible…

But he never did find those words, and the voices returned instead in their place, triumphant and victorious,

_You'll never change! Useless James!_

So instead he just holds her tight, grits his teeth, and accepts what he is.


	5. Hunger Strike

**Chapter 5**

**Hunger Strike**

The things which happen next, Kate will always remember only as a blur of shadows and a rush of stale air. Lights explode on with a sickening hum of neon, bathing the room in blinding white. For a moment it is like staring into the blazing face of the sun –

As she jacknifes back instinctively her back cracks against the wall and she bites back a furious yell of pain. Sawyer scuttles backwards, equally shocked, equally on the defensive. Because after those screams, anything could happen….

But for a moment, nothing does.

They both remain frozen rigid. The fear paralyses Kate, seeps into the very marrow of her bones – the Blue Room beckons, with its lure of safety and shelter from this nightmare. She has never been this way before, never found it so easy to slip out of her consciousness straight through those blue doors – now it comes to her as easily as slipping out of a shirt. This isn't right, this isn't _her_. What is happening to her…!

But just before she feels the ground rush up and her consciousness fly away from her, her eyes lock onto his. Sawyer, light blazing cruelly over his bloody face and matted hair, crouched opposite with stormy eyes --

"Don't you go bailing on me Freckles! You wanted the light honey, you got it --!"

_Freckles_. That name, it brings her round like a slap to the face, and she jerks back against the wall, senses crashing back on red alert. It's like a veil has been lifted from her vision – everything slams back into focus, the room comes alive with clarity. It is a blazing white cell, with a single bunk... and the only colour is blood, _Sawyer's blood,_ stained on the floor.

"Are they coming for us?" He sees her eyes tear about the room, as though the Guards could come crashing through the walls or pouring from the damn corners at any second, "Why aren't they _coming_?"

"Maybe they're scared." _Keep her talking, _Sawyer thinks suddenly, _offend her, upset her, just keep her with it, get a reaction!_, "Maybe they're playing a game. Maybe they're trying to _light_ us to death, how the hell should I know!"

"Well you tell me Sawyer!" That riled rise in her voice, _it's working!_ "I'm sorry if I'm a little nervous here, but this kind of thing has never _happened_ _to me before –!"_

"And you think I'm the _expert_ here!" He yells in outrage, as she advances. Her eyes shine angrily, and here it is, this is what he wants. _Take it out on me! _

"So only _pretend_ to know everything, is that right --?" She spits bitterly and he gets in close, hoping she'll come at him, then he can _shake _her out of her crazy daze.

"Honey I know lots of things! I know how to bang two coconuts together and get milk, I know how to con a woman for all she's worth and leave her for dust, I know how to lie, cheat, steal. _Kill_. But you put me in a locked room, with no windows and doors, with no goddamn way _away_ from you, and you want answers? Honey, I'm clueless as they come!"

Suddenly a grinding wail of static blares into the cell. Their hands shoot up to their ears in pain. The static wails and whines, like a crying, dying child and it drives them to their knees. Grabbing Kate close, unmindful of the pain in his battered limbs Sawyer leans into her –

-- as the static splutters into a low voice.

"Stay where you are. Door opening."

-- and as Sawyer turns in shock, a concealed door opens from the wall with a metallic blip. Kate turns to see, still holding him close and Christ he can feel her heart beating against him through his tee shirt like a freight train gone wild off the tracks --

"_Sawyer --"_ She gasps,

"_Just hold on."_ He mutters, and as the door finishes its steady opening, three shadows enter. Two blank eyed Guards dressed in military grey, crew cuts and two of the deadliest M16 Assault Rifles he'd ever seen. Laser scope and flashlight combined, Jesus Christ…!

And bringing up the rear is a dark haired woman. Hell, if Sawyer wasn't bloody, bleeding and locked up he would have found her damn near _attractive_ –

The woman enters holding a gunmetal tray and wordlessly places it on the floor before them, then turns to Kate. Sawyers arms involuntarily tighten their death grip on her.

"This is for you." The dark haired woman's voice is soft, not a command, but a suggestion as she gestures to Kate, "Take it."

Kate goes to move under the aim of the armed Guards, but Sawyer doesn't let her go.

"_Don't do it_ – probably poisoned –"

"Take it now, or I'll take it back with me and you can go hungry tonight." The dark haired woman's bright blue eyes glow with suppressed concern. When Kate still hesitates, the woman nods. "The weapons. Do they make you nervous?"

Sawyer looks up to her in disbelief. "What the hell do _you_ think!"

He can feel Kate gasp more than he can hear it, they're still so close and his ears are ringing like a bastard. But he does not drop his gaze from the dark haired woman. Finally, the woman nods to the Guards, and they exit. At the door, she turns to them.

"I will leave the tray. Next time, they will expect more co-operation. You are on your first warning. Please --"

She throws a look over her shoulder, voice dropping low, and suddenly Sawyer knows she is scared too.

Her eyes meet his in silent apology but she is resolute.

"Don't make me give you another."

When the door reverts back to its place, Sawyer springs to his feet and in one fluid motion his hands trace about its outline, _trying to feel for it – _

"Sawyer stop." He hears Kate demanding, but ignores her flat. If anything, his movements intensify –

"Sawyer STOP!"

Suddenly the lights blink out with a ratcheting whine, and the room is plunged into blackness again. And Kate's cry just lingers through the black…

_It's hopeless_

He pounds his fists against the invisible door, helpless to stop himself --

_Scrawny little Jimmy can't take on those guys! Jimmy Ford and Freckles are next! They killed Jack and they'll come for her next, and you can sit in her, alone and listen to her screams -- _

"Sawyer?" Her voice comes again as he slides down the wall in mounting fury.

"Sawyer are you there?" This last, a whisper. "_Sawyer…!" _

As he sinks to the cold floor, he shivers, grips his head in his hands –

"Do you think they killed him?" He hears through the darkness, and it's the first time they have been able to bring themselves to speak of him. Sawyer's stomach takes a kamikaze nose dive.

_Jack. _

Taking his silence for misunderstanding, Kate's voice returns, lower and bordering on hysteria. _"Do you think they killed him? _You know who I'm talking about --"

_Why are you asking me?_ Sawyer rages behind his hands, but forces himself to say "No way. No, _no_ _way_, of course not. Hell Freckles, they ain't barbarians!"

"Are you serious!" Her voice chokes through the darkness, and as she laughs he can hear the tears thick in her throat, tears she is fighting wildly not to shed, "You didn't see your face Sawyer, you're a mess – and the screams, _you heard them --"_

"They gave us food --" He tries in vain to keep her spirits up, "Why'd they bother wasting food on us if they were planning on --"

"_I don't want to hear it --"_ He can hear Kate backing away, and the continual rasp of what he knows, with a sinking feeling, is her rocking backwards and forwards. So what in God's good name _does _she want to hear! That they were waiting on the wonderful little invisible door whooshing open to be lead to a cheerful little death at the hands of Zeke and a goddamn reject from the Wizard of Oz! Again, that lousy barricade roadblocks his throat, preventing him from comforting her –

-- and his foot scuffs the tray. He pulls it towards him and stares at it hard. Kate' voice drifts towards him, "Next time, they will expect more _co_-_operation_, you're on your first warning! What does that even _mean, don't you_ _care_–"

A thin shaft of light bleeds under the invisible door, illuminating the tray – and its selection of silver vacuum packed bags. Lifting one into the light, Sawyer squints with false enthusiasm, "Check it out! Dharma tomato soup, with 20 bona fide tomatoes in it --!"

"_Shut up Sawyer –!"_ Kates voice is vicious through the black, but he can't stop, he knows he should but he _can't, _he can't think about what's behind this door yet –

"Whaddaya say Freckles? Fancy a little roast turkey, 28 gen-u-ine _bird_ --"

"Quit it! I mean it, _just stop!"_

"Or hey --! Strawberries and cream, an entire 18 berries and artificial cream to boot!"

Suddenly he is tackled heavily to the ground and Kate is on top of him, hitting him, pummelling him with her fists hard enough to make him gasp. It happens so fast she actually gets a few good ones in before he can wrench hold of the damn fireball –

In the dusty shaft of light, he looks up to her breathing heavily and knows this ain't about turkey and strawberries. But the deep seated fears of inadequacies won't allow him peace – he doesn't know what to say, what she wants to hear, _how he's supposed to feel --_

"_I'm scared Sawyer."_ She whispers, "Oh my God….! They… they're gonna kill us, aren't they? Right here. Tonight --"

_Jimmy Ford and Freckles are next! JIMMY FORD AND FRECKLES ARE –_

"No." Sawyer growls, holding her tight and forces himself past the voices, past the doubt and the fear and the unworthiness, he forces himself to meet her eyes unwaveringly and _believe –_

"No' one's getting killed Kate. Not here. Not tonight."

Something shifts in her. Something so subtle that anyone who hasn't been in this (kinda _privileged_) position right under Kate before, just staring up into the wide green eyes would have missed. He's suddenly certain of it. Because the fear parts in her eyes, the only place she can't hide from him, the only place where he can still reach her.

And he thinks as he lays there, _maybe this is it_. Maybe the next time this door rolls open those guys won't hold fire. Maybe the dark haired woman will lead them to where the screams came from, maybe they will be next. Maybe it is inevitable…

But maybe he has just told her what she needed to hear. Maybe he has, because the fear is lifting in her as he watches, and it's amazing, it stills his racing heart to see it. Maybe she is stronger because of it… and maybe if she is stronger, he can be too, somehow.

And as the lines iron from her brow, as she stares down at him with some shattered semblance of peace, he feels it too. He feels it wash through him in a delicious flourish of cool, calm rationality. Now rational was one thing Sawyer always prided himself that he didn't have the bad luck of being, but now… maybe it's what he needs to feel.

And so returning her look with dimples and a sad ruffle of her hair, he sighs,

"Remind me never to offer you strawberries again, Left hook. I get the feelin' my face is messed up enough already."

She actually laughs, her nose crinkling, eyes sparkling. "It's not that bad. Probably looks worse than it is – I'm sure Jack – "

Her eyes spear his in shock at her slip up. Then Sawyer nods, resolutely.

"He'll take a look. Wave his damn magic wand and make me a new man again Freckles. Soon as we find him. Soon as we get outta here…"

"How?"

"Don't worry. I gotta plan."

"Your _last_ plan got your ribs broken and shot with a sleeping drug --"

"Hey, I didn't see you coming up with any bright ideas --!"

She glares at him, "That's because I had a bag over my head, Sawyer." He mimics her sarcastic smile, and after a moment, Kate looks around the room, shivering.

"Wish the lights were back on… somehow in the dark… it… this doesn't seem real, does it?" She suddenly retracts a little, like she has given too much of herself away. To his tired amusement, he sees Freckles is actually _blushing_, honest to God!

Sawyer only nods, then returns his gaze to the food tray with its packets of goddamn fake food and sighs as his stomach gurgles loudly. She raises an eyebrow and sighs,

"What about the food? Do you really think they'd poison it?"

He stares at it longingly, then to her, "D'you trust 'em?"

Kate only stares at him, her renunciation clear… and sighing, Sawyer kicks the tray into the corner of the room. "Then looks like you an me are gonna have ourselves a lil' _hunger_ _strike_, darlin'." His eyes sparkle tiredly, "And when we get back to our little hatch, safe and sound, I'll lay you out the biggest feast of Dharma macaroni and french dressing you ever saw."

And Kate smiles.


	6. Conning Dr Death

**Chapter 6**

**Conning Dr Death**

Pensive, the dark haired woman stands in the glaring corridor, flanked by the two Guards. This place is immaculate, unlike any of the hatches in design – save for the DHARMA logo which brands the walls. She's always hated the lights in here, the way they hum and flicker, a constant headache, and after meeting the hostages, it's the last thing she needs. And the Guards are looking at her awaiting orders, and she sighs,

"At ease. They're not going anywhere."

The Guards nod, and as they disperse down the echoing corridor, her eyes fix on a tall Japanese scientist who approaches, dressed in a sterile grey lab coat and her stomach lurches. She hates this…

"Alex," He stands before her, staring down at her like she is a fly he would love to swat, "What did you find out?"

"Nothing, Agent Blue. They were still lucid enough to know we meant them harm."

"The hostages are stronger than we expected." The scientist, Agent Blue mulls over a clipboard of charts and data, "Their friend, Michael succumbed to the voices within hours…"

"The woman is having trouble." The dark haired woman says, "I see it in her eyes. But the man… he is a problem. He has a lot of resistance, a lot of anger…" Briefly, her eyes cloud, as she remembers how the man had stared straight into her, seen her fear which she had grown into a master at disguising -- but she snaps back quickly.

"He will be our next specimen." Agent Blue confirms, "But I'm not happy about this. I had given strict orders for them to be unharmed. How am I to conduct successful experiments on damaged goods?"

"Maybe you should use the woman instead." Alex says, a little too quickly. Agent Blue looks over his glasses – and his oriental eyes are shocking blue.

"The man is the threat. He is next. Their friend – Jack. He was too strong for us to break completely – but maybe this one, with his anger and his pain will be easier."

"It won't be easy." Alex says, "He seems very protective of the woman. If you separate them, he'll --"

"I'm not going to separate them Alex!" The Agent laughs coldly, his eyes of ice stabbing into her_, "You are."_

"You have to tell me." Pissed off, Kate watches Sawyer who has his head pressed to the invisible door.

"Alex!" He says, "You reckon that's Dr Death's name?"

"I don't care!" Kate rounds on Sawyer in annoyance. "Look, you don't get to tell me you have a plan and then refuse to tell me what it is okay!"

"Yes I do. Watch." To her fury, Sawyer gestures zipping his mouth shut. She glares at him and he smiles that shit eating grin, "See?"

"Sawyer – we have to be smart about this, you can't just attack them, in case it escaped your attention _they've_ _got_ _guns --"_

"Who said I was gonna attack 'em!" He says, sounding insulted. "Jesus woman, what do you take me for? I'm gonna _talk_ to 'em!"

"_Talk?"_ Is she really hearing this!

"Sure." He says irritably, "Unless you got any other ways of getting that crazy gal's attention, I'm gonna work on her."

"You have got to be kidding." Kate's heart sinks, "You're gonna come onto her?"

"I eat girls like her for breakfast, sweetcheeks." He looks away though, and Kate gets the sudden feeling he is not bragging… it sounded like a confession. Bitter, almost… and that's not like him.

Worriedly, she crosses her arms tightly, advancing in worry. "So what are you going to say to them when they come in here with their M16's aimed at your head? My, what nice shiny guns you have --!"

"I don't know!" His eyes suddenly crinkle mischievously. "How's about take me to your leader?"

"Sawyer they're not aliens!" God, she could kill him sometimes!

"How do you know, you ever seen one?" His eyes flash, "And in case you forgot, I ain't never been abducted before! Ain't like there's a tried and true method to getting out alive --"

She stares at him in shock that he could say this, and she thinks he has even shocked himself a little. How can he possibly talk them out of this place when he can't even keep his foot out of his mouth? She despairs at him --

-- just as that static blares through the air again, and they take shelter with their hands over their ears. But this time, when the lights punch into the room she sees Sawyer is not sheltering with her – instead, she watches in what seems like slow motion as he stands, and moves to the centre of the room. Beaten up, bloodied and exhausted, but still fighting them…

"_Sawyer!"_ She yells over the shrieking static furiously, "Sawyer don't you dare!"

"Look, just _trust_ me alright!" He yells, "I got it covered!"

"Stay where you are." That inhuman voice grates over the PA system, "Doors opening."

And she knows whatever he will face coming through those doors, she will not let him do it alone. Damn him and his alpha male ego! But she scuttles to her feet as the door grates away from the wall with its mechanical gurgle, and finds his side. She grips his arm and hisses in his ear, praying he'll see sense –

"Don't do this – please --"

"Just trust me." He mutters, feeling her hand clench about his bicep – angrily he tries to ignore the butterfly rush it brings to his stomach as she says,

"I don't trust you, Sawyer. I never have --"

And as the door opens fully, he glances down at her resolutely, seeing in her eyes it's a lie, that she is trusting him right now with her life.

"Well then," He smiles tightly, "Now's a mighty fine time to give it a try."

The dark haired woman enters, alone, and looks to the tray on the floor, then to the two hostages as though hurt that her meal had been rejected.

"Guards are outside, I wouldn't try anything. You weren't hungry?"

"Why are you doin' this Alex?" Sawyer demands, "Where's the Doc?"

Upon mention of her name, Alex changes. Her stance loosens, and she looks stricken, like he has just slapped her, hard. Sawyer notes this, a little thrown…

Alex enters further, eyes stormy oceans, until she is standing damn near nose to nose with him! He looks down, trying to cover his surprise… he thinks first that maybe this little con will be easier than he thought – because she's damn close enough to kiss him. He can feel her breath on his face, and her gaze goes right through him, delves deep inside. He squares his jaw…

Kate watches this all in amazement…

As Alex says, "Have you heard their voices yet?"

Kate looks to Sawyer in shock. Voices? Had he been hearing things? Jesus, she'd been so wrapped up in her own fear that she had failed to even check if he was okay. Her eyes fly to him now, and he has stiffened. She can feel it, where she is gripping his arm – it is like electricity is thrumming through him, knitting every bone rigid.

"No --" He spits furiously, and Kate knows with a terrible sinking feeling that it's a lie, "No, what are you talking about --"

The woman suddenly grabs his arm, and in seconds, Kate sees the light flash from a hypodermic – before it plunges into Sawyers shoulder, and he yells in pain.

Whatever it is she just stabbed him with affects Sawyer in a sick, hot wave which sears out from the point of impact all the way down his arm, and shoots across his chest. He goes numb almost immediately – and a terrific high screeching is wailing –

_Somebody turn that goddamn PA system OFF! _

But he knows its in his head, it can't be turned off, and he can feel himself losing the fight to stay awake, feel himself going down…

"What the – what the hell did you… do to me…"

Then the lights go out and he knows no more.

What it is she shouts and screams in those next minutes, Kate never remembers. Maybe she blocks it out, like she is sure many grey areas in her memory have erased themselves to block out similar pain in her past. Because before she can even move, before Sawyer has even hit the ground, the Guards have grabbed him and hauled him up. As Kate rushes forth to grab him, beating her fists on the Guards in a frenzy, Alex seizes her, hauls her back –

"Don't do this," Alex hitches into Kate's hair as she struggles, "Your time is not now, you're too weak to fight --"

"Let him go – _Sawyer!_" Kate chokes, heart driving up like a fist in her throat, _"Let him go please --"_

But the Guards have taken him, and as Kate shoves Alex away from her, she feels a sting in her arm. As she looks down dazedly, she sees a hypodermic still sticking in her arm, and she looks up to Alex in hatred.

"Who are you people? _What do you want!"_

Alex only stands in the doorway with a look of terrible sadness on her face and says,

"I'm sorry it has to be this way. I'm so sorry."

As the lights cut out and the darkness crashes back into the room, the fear rises like a tidal wave in Kate as she rushes forth to stop the door closing, chasing the last of the light –

"No – _NO!"_

* * *

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	7. What have you done to me?

**Chapter 7**

**What have you done to me?**

Sawyer sluggishly comes awake an unknown amount of time later. Squinting at the bright light which he is now so unaccustomed to, he groans. Lousy head feels like its stuffed with cotton wool. It pulses, like a slow throb of electricity is pumping its way through the bloodstream in his brain… did he hit his head? He can't remember. Can't string two thoughts together, in fact…

_Kate, _his mind reminds him urgently, _Got to find Kate!_

But the world's a bleary state. As he cranes his neck up, he observes smears of grey equipment in the burning white room, hears the low blip of machines, and Jesus, why is everything so hard to focus on!

A dark head blocks out light. He realizes there is a damn light right over his head, the inconsiderate bastards are merrily shining right into his tender eyes. Somebody's going to _pay_ for this –

"Kate…?" He murmurs thickly. But this ain't the same angel that was leaning over him before, he can't see, but he can _sense_ it –

"Are you awake? You need to wake up –"

But Sawyer only groans, and rolls over, closing his eyes because of the stupid light, then trying not to fall asleep behind there – when he feels hands shaking him, hard.

With a guttural curse he wrenches open his eyes and to his utter disbelief, he sees Alex, crouching beside him and leaning in close.

"What the hell… get away from me!" He slurs heavily, but little Dr Death ain't looking like she's listening to him, which pisses him off. In fact, she's listening intently around – he doesn't like that look. Oh no, not one bit…

Her paranoia brings him back to himself a little – at least enough for him to take a stab at sitting up. He immediately wishes he hadn't bothered – because his stomach rushes up to give a friendly head butt to his tonsils, and funnily enough, his wrists stay at his sides. He looks down distractedly at his arms, as though they are not his. They are cuffed to the bed with thick metal clamps. Oh man, he's liking this situation less and less…

"Can you get up? Can you stand?" Alex is blocking the light again, in his face.

"You want me to wake up now, you're the one who knocked me out!" He says in hopeless confusion – why is she unlocking the clamps on his hands? He could take her down, surely – ain't no Guards, just him and her, surely he could do it –

"Don't ask questions – you have to come with me!"

"Don't ask questions… ain't that just like a woman." He slurs as he sits, rubbing life back into his wrists. His body feels strangely disconnected though… like he's been on an all night bender. And as he pushes his legs over the side of the bed, he feels faint. Something is wrong here…

Alex grapples for his arm, and he pushes her off, at a loss to understand her U turn from Dr Death to Florence Nightingale. But as he tries to stand, getting ready to give her a cocky retort, his knees buckle, and if she hadn't steadied him he would have gone down, no word of a lie!

Breathing heavily, he can feel the sweat soaking his back, stinging his eyes – and he turns to find himself nose to nose with Alex, the little chameleon.

"What's your angle Florence?" He sighs, unable to muster nearly enough tired swagger, "Where you taking me now?"

So close, Alex stares up at him and her eyes are hypnotic, sapphire blue, lips parted –

She pulls away, leaning him back against the cot and ducking towards a metal wardrobe in the shadowy corner. Now that he's off the bed, Sawyer discovers the rest of the room is cloaked in shadow – and as Alex throws a bundle of ragged clothes at him, discovers too that he is naked as the day he came cryin'.

"Get dressed. We have to move now."

And he may be high as a damn kite, but just before Alex turns away, he is certain he sees her eyes flicker at him curiously down below.

As Sawyer pulls a pair of military boots on dazedly, he watches Alex rhythmically cracking her knuckles and staring out the window into the corridor.

"You can turn round," He says, "Ain't naked no more." She turns quickly, all business and he flashes her a tired grin, "Mores the pity."

"Get up," She says, rolling her eyes nervously.

"Well why not? Better go out the way I came in." He doesn't even know why he's saying these things, maybe it's the drugs, it _must_ be. Why else would he be hitting on her? Now he squints closely, he sees Alex is no more than a teenager. Maybe kinda older, its hard to tell –

"Let me get this straight," He says as he buttons a scratchy grey shirt over his stomach, "Are you springing me _outta_ here?"

"Well done!" Alex says, and to his surprise she holds out something to him. He looks to it, then to her face in shock.

It's a Beretta.

"A gun." He says simply, "You think that's smart? After everything you've done, you're givin' _me_ a _gun_…?"

She returns his stares steadily, "Maybe I'm stupid. You could shoot me if you want – but I think you need me. You have no idea the trouble your in, where your friends are, or how to get out of here… so maybe I'm stupid… but maybe you need me."

He returns her look unflinchingly as that strange thrumming rumbles through his head… looks to the gun….

_Shoot her! _His mind screams, _do it now, you wanted this! Make her pay! _

"Lady…" He says softy as his hand tightens around the Beretta's cool grip, "You're my kinda stupid."

"Alex," She says, holding out a hand. Incredulously he shakes her hand.

"Sawyer."

And as he turns towards the door, he catches his reflection and freezes.

"What?" Alex says suspiciously, "What's wrong? Sawyer?"

Her voice suddenly seems very far away. All he can see is his reflection in that bastard mirror, growing as he walks towards it… but even when he stands before it, it makes no more sense.

His head has been shaved, and a thick bandage covers its left side.

Sawyer runs his fingers over the bandage, the shock of seeing it doubled with his jaggedly shorn head of hair. And now he sees it, the electrical current which has been subtly pulsing through him picks up, throbs…

…as he turns to Alex with wide eyes, as dread panic steals through him…

"_What have you done to me…" _

She stares back, scared….

­

Kate awakens with her back stiff against the wall. As she comes around, the world spins in dark swirls before her, and there is a metallic taste in her mouth, which reminds her of the oxygen mask she'd had be given when she was 8 and broke her arm on the swings…

Sitting stiffly, she looks about, mind thundering dully, longing for Sawyer, Jack, mangoes, their hatch, the beach... her heart cries out for them, a physical wrenching sensation. And she is hungry, so hungry…

Her eyes fall on the tray, still overturned in the corner where Sawyer had left it. How easy it would be to crawl over there, rip open the packets and wolf down the food. Even if it is poisoned, maybe it would be a better way out of here than wherever Alex would be leading her next…

Maybe it was Alex's way of warning her. End it now, before they take you to where the screams were coming from, make it easy on yourself.

But she hadn't heard Sawyer scream. Until she heard that, she couldn't give in, couldn't retreat to her blue room in case he came back… but what if he didn't? Jack never came back…

Kate stares at the poisoned food, torn in two… her hand numbly picks up a small, oh so discreet silver packet…

"Roast turkey, 28 gen-u-ine _bird_…" She mimics his voice, as two tears splatter onto the print, blurring it into smudge…

_Eat it Kate, _her mind whirs, _Eat it because he's never coming back for you. He's dead, they both are, and you're weak – and you're NEXT. _

His stare is almost more than she can take, full of fear and pain and fury…

"_What have you done!" _He hisses, and Alex moves forwards placating.

"It wasn't me!"

"Who did this? Huh! _What did they do to me!"_

Suddenly footsteps pass the room and Alex pushes Sawyer back into the shadows… then once they are alone, she goes to move into action but he grabs her arm, stares at her for answer…

"It's some kind of transmitter…it tunes into your brain frequency. It tracks how you think, translates your brain patterns into thoughts, words. The longer that it's implanted, the clearer it can recognize what you are thinking."

He can only stare at her in horror, mind instantly and frantically rejecting these words, but inside he knows, he can feel it inside his head, thrumming with its sick electricity through his body…

_Get her, she's lying to you! _His mind riles him, and where are these thoughts _COMING_ from --

"You have about two days before the transmitter adjusts fully to your mind set. Until then we might be okay – they won't be able to read your mind just now. And you said you haven't heard their voices yet, implanting thoughts…"

He only stares at her at a complete loss, and she squeezes his arm for comfort, "That's a _good_ thing."

Sawyer looks away, feeling sick, sick to his stomach…

"What?" Alex says worriedly.

"Nothing." Sawyer says through the lump in his throat. "I'm good."

As Alex turns outwards, Sawyer takes a deep breath, steadying himself…

"Take me to my friends."

Alex turns on him as though he has lost his mind.

"I ain't going nowhere with out them." He says tired determination, "So you'd better start walking."

Alex stares at him in worry…

"What…?" He says uneasily, "Start walking!" She does not move, and he gets in real close, studies her face… she returns his look anxiously, and for just a moment her eyes literally glow with fear.

"The man is not the same as you remember him…"


	8. The Staff

**Chapter 8**

**The Staff**

Creeping along the steadily thrumming corridor, Sawyer covers Alex, desperately trying to focus and shrug off the remains of the sleeping drug in his system. But it isn't just the after effects of the drugs – something strange is happening to his vision.

Strange symbols, like Egyptian hieroglyphics keep flitting before his eyes –

"From what I've seen, the time it takes for the transmitter to reach full power varies from person to person." Alex breathes to Sawyer as they dart from room to room, hiding in shadows when crowds of personnel pass.

"With Michael it was no time at all --"

"Mike!" Sawyer breathes, sweating and furiously trying to blink away the damn images, "They got Mikey too?"

"Yeah," She says as she ducks into a dimly lit side room, "Was he a friend of yours too?"

Sawyer thinks back to the last time he'd seen Michael, the trap, and that famillar sting of betrayal hits him. _Look, I had to – _he heard Michael saying just before everything had gone black. Hell, he _gets_ the whole idea of blood being thicker than water, but did Mike really have to put all their necks on the block to save his damn kid?

"Ain't no friend of mine." Sawyer grunts as Alex shoots furtive looks around her shoulders – then hops up onto a couple of crates. Sawyer watches incredulously as she unscrews the lugs from a battered vent. "Oh no. Oh no little action hero, where do you think you're goin!"

She shoots him an infuriatingly patient look, like she is talking to a particularly slow five year old. "The med quarters are in lockdown! Didn't you wonder why we made it out here so easy?"

"Easy? You call that easy!" Jesus, he can barely stand, let alone crawl through a smoke crammed vent.

"Since they brought you here they sealed the doors. This is the only way, can you do it?" She says impatiently and irritably Sawyer steps forwards.

"Of course I can!"

Christ this is harder than he thought. Crawling arm over arm throw tight vents ain't his idea of what a guy whose just had brain surgery should be doing, and Alex is up ahead, shooting warning hisses over his shoulder to keep the noise down!

"Will you keep it down, they'll hear you!"

"I'm sorry if my crawlings a little _loud_ for you Wonder woman," He hisses in retort, "Maybe after _you've_ just endured brain surgery you can show me how it's done --!"

Suddenly Alex halts and he damn near gets a foot in the face. "What is it?" He says, alert. He watches Alex silently remove a vent guard and peer down, his heart racing…

"Corridors clear. You ready?" She says softly.

"You need to ask?"

Dropping into the corridor, Sawyers first impression of this area of the med quarters gives him the shivers. Along the industrial gantries made of corrugated metal, a sick blue haze coats everything like a blanket. And there is a strange roar which drifts constantly through the air like distant thunder, unlike the constant dry whir of machinery… and he suddenly has a very bad feeling about where exactly they are. This ain't like any of the hatches, this place is higher tech somehow –

Alex pulls him into a crouch and gestures to the window behind, where lab coated scientists work on mammoth computers. Alex glances alertly about, getting her bearings…

"We breached the security doors. Access to this level is open," and her eyes fix on an open blast door at the end of the hall. "Take this and get your friend. The holding cell you were locked in is at the end of the hall. I'll cover you."

"How do I know where the damn door is?" He says softly, "Case you forgot, I never saw it!"

"You'll know. When you get there, remember _Thunder_. Hurry, we don't have much time -- "

Desperately trying to be stealthy yet feeling like his damn limbs are made out of gradually setting concrete, Sawyer makes his way as quickly as he can up the hall, stewing over Alex's words. Remember thunder! What does that even _mean?_ And how in hell does he even know which door it will be, its not like there's a great Disney World map of this place with a big sign anywhere saying 'Kate is here!' –

But as he passes through the blast door, his train of thought cuts dead. In this brightly lit section of the med quarters, the corridor ends, and the familiar bright light which had sliced under the door of their cell makes him squint. And at the corridors end waits a high tech blast door, with a flat screen panel of glowing dials.

He approaches slowly, and not for the first time wonders why there are so few people around. Where have all the Guards with their friendly ole' M16's hightailed it off to? It makes him uneasy, and as he stands over the flat screen panel, he watches a screensaver of the Dharma logo flitting about –

-- and his vision doubles suddenly, trebles as those Egyptian hieroglyphics flutter before his eyes.

_Get away get away! _Those voices scream in his mind, but shaking them away unsteadily, he forces himself to focus on the screen --

Eight logos appear with a soft whoosh on screen and Sawyer frowns. The logos are all based on an octagonal pattern surrounded by lines which circle a central symbol. – he recognizes the Swan symbol from the good ole hatch back south, and the sudden rush of nostalgic and home sickness it bring shocks him. Since when did that dark hole with its godawful doomsday button become home? He doesn't know. Maybe around the same time Jack saved his life when he was feverish and Kate cried in his arms after Ana-Lucia and Libby were killed…

But the other symbols in each central logo are different, and as a command prompt appears, asking which station he wants access to, he remembers Alex's words.

_When you get there remember thunder. _

Beneath each Logo is a name. His eyes flutter over them – The Swan - _Earth ,_ The Arrow - _Wind,_ The Bolt - _Heaven,_ The Pearl - _Water , _The Flame – _Fire,_ The Door - _Mountain_… and The Staff – _Thunder._

Bingo.

He touches the symbol and immediately, the screen blinks out into the view inside the cell as the lights power on, painting the cell white – and illuminating a body on the floor. His mind jams, heart leaps as the door quietly grinds open –

-- and he rushes inside the cell, grapples Kate's slumped form up wildly --

"Kate!" He whispers fearfully, shaking her, "Kate!"

She groans thickly and he shakes her harder, hating himself for being so rough but just wanting to get the hell out of here "Kate! Come on Angel, time to wake up now!"

But his eyes roam past her, and settle on the tray he had overturned in the corner, now sitting in the middle of the room. All the wrappers have been ripped open.

_And all the wrappers are empty._

"Kate!" He chokes in disbelief, hands running through the empty foil wrappers desperately, as though touching them will somehow make this real, make it all make some kind of sense – he checks her airways, frantically tries to find a pulse –

_Too late Jimmy, _the voices gloat triumphantly, _Too late –_

"Damn it Kate! _Goddamn it --!"_ Tears blur his vision and Christ, why is his heart pounding so hard, so hard its going to shatter in two, "Goddamn you Freckles don't you leave me here! You die and you leave me in this shit alone_, I would never do that to you!" _

Suddenly he notices something strange. The angle which Kate's head is tilted at, he can see a tuft of something white sticking out behind her ear. His torrent of abuse dies in his throat as he slowly brushes back her hair, those luxurious dark curls matted, tainted…

A bandage is sealed to her head, on the right side. _Identical to his._

He stares down at it in renewed horror a moment. For a moment, he can't think, move, breathe. Everything whittles down to that one bandage, that is all that the world is made up of, the only thing.

"Freckles…" He breathes, _"Oh Freckles, they got you too."_

Suddenly Alex darts in, nearly giving him a heart attack. "Come on, what's taking so --" Then she sees Kate's body and rivets still in shock. Then she meets Sawyers eyes.

"She ate the food." He chokes furiously, as his mind celebrates,

_Its Alex's fault! She gave it to her! If she hadn't given you the food Kate'd still be alive!_

And with dark hatred in his eyes, Sawyer levels the Beretta at Alex,

"The food _you gave her."_

"You don't understand -- " Alex backs up, holding up her hands –

"I understand," Sawyer takes off the safety. Boy, he doesn't understand much that's happening here, but by God, he understands betrayal. "I understand just fine --"

"Sawyer wait!" Alex cries as he levels the gun –

"_Sawyer, the food was clean!" _

And as Alex's scream reports around the cell, Kate gasps.

"Kate?" Sawyer breathes dropping the weapon and leaning close, barely daring to believe it, "Katie, you hearing me?"

Kate's eyelashes flutter – then with a yell her elbow jerks up and cracks into his jaw. He jacknifes back with a yell of pain, clutching his jaw as Kate scuttles back away from him, hurling abuse, with a cornered, almost hunted look. For a moment, they just stare at each other in outraged mistrust…

Then he watches the recognition surge in Kate's eyes, thawing their hard green orbs. And hot on the tail of that, the relief hits her, relief so powerful hrer brow crumples and her eyes fill. Relief so raw it steals all the way out of her and swells right through _him_ too, he's almost giddy with the stuff.

"What happened to your head?" She says finally, and his self consciously reaches up to his newly shorn head and sighs,

"Sweetheart, I wish I knew."

"You called me Angel." She says as he helps her up, "Why? You've never called me that before."

"You called me many things darlin', I think you win --"

Then Kate freezes.

"You!" She says, glaring at Alex. But Sawyer pulls her towards the door, and from the looks of it she's just as dazed as he is. He wonders if she's been implanted with the same transmitter, if she's seeing the same things he is, hearing voices –

"That's Alex. Alex, this is Kate." He says, leading Kate towards the door quickly, but Kate will not go near her. She glares at Alex, and Sawyer just knows that once Kate loses trust in someone, its gone. And she never trusted Alex in the _first_ place –

Suddenly Kate grips Sawyers gun from his hands and brings it to bear on Alex.

"Kate!" Sawyer hisses in shock – _"Kate, what the hell --"_

"Do you trust her?" Kate says, addressing Sawyer but staring straight into Alex coldly. Sawyer doesn't reply straight away, looking into Alex. He asks himself the question for the hundredth time.

_Do you trust her?_

"Sawyer." Kate's voice is low, deadly cold – like she will have no problem pulling the trigger on his word, _"Do you?"_

Alex looks to him imploringly –

Kate releases the safety –

And Sawyer grips the barrel of the Beretta. Kate's eyes spear him questioningly, searching his for a reason not to pull the trigger…

"I trust her."

But the mistrust is evident in her and he knows she doesn't believe him. He knows he has to explain, he _hates_ doing that, and there's no time –

"Kate, we're in trouble here. Bad trouble, _killin'_ trouble maybe, the worst kind – now I ain't got a clue where we are yet but Lord, I've seen what's out there…" His eyes cloud, "…and what they did to me. And unless you wanna blow away our only chance of getting outta here alive, you'll trust me on this." Her vicious words ring in his ears from earlier,

_I don't trust you Sawyer, I never have –_

And nothing has changed, not a damn thing, why should she trust him now? Tightening his grip on the barrel, he clenches his jaw, meets Kate's eyes and breathes,

"What's happening Sawyer?" Kate says through clenched teeth, her knuckles white on the grip, "I'm going crazy here --"

"Kate --" He forces calmness into his voice although he can feel panic creeping in all around him now, "Kate, the worlds gone crazy. Not you. Soon as we find someplace safe, I'll tell you everything I know, _I swear it –"_

Kate glances at him, and he sees she desperately wants to believe him… but her eyes shoot back to Alex –

"I trust her." Sawyer says firmly, knowing this is it, the moment of truth, "I trust her Kate… and you trust _me_, right?"

He feels Alex's eyes burning into him as his heart slowly climbs to his throat… and Kate looks away.

Listlessly she drops her hand from the grip of the Beretta and pushes wordlessly past them into the hall, leaving Alex to wilt a little with relief, and Sawyer to marvel for a moment that somehow, in their own private struggles against the darkness, that he had earned Kate's trust in a way he could never have believed.

_Gotta earn it now, _those defeated voices bait him, and as he steps into the bright hall leaving that foul cell behind, he looks to Alex and says,

"Where's Jack?"


	9. It'll come back around

**Chapter 9**

**It'll come back around…**

As the elevator thunders down the shaft, Sawyer shivers. The flickering red and blue lights which bathe the maintenance elevator creep him out – they wash Kate and Alex's faces in light, then shadow, red, blue… his stomach turns and suddenly, he doesn't feel so hot. That godawful ringing is pulsing through his head again, growing ever stronger, bringing with it the voices…

_You can't run little Jimmy, not when what your scared of inside your head. Inside YOU – ain't no place that far –_

Suddenly the elevator squeals to a stop, nearly throwing them off their feet. Sawyer wheels to see Alex finishing typing in a code into the elevator panel – "You tryin' to finish me off woman?" He yells, _"What the hell are you doin'!" _

"It's a trap --" Kate steps forwards, "It's a trap _I told you --!"_

"Manual override." Alex says nonplussed by their anger, "We all need to have a little chat someplace where they can't reach us." She pins them with a stare Sawyer finds damn near _intimidating_. "You have to understand – as soon as we spring your friend, they'll come after us. They've harvested his mind already, they know its patterns – as soon as they read them, they'll know something's wrong --"

"What is she _talking_ about!" Kate says in disbelief, instinctively backing behind Sawyer as though Alex's words will somehow attack her… and Sawyer turns to her gently.

The world is swimming. Kate feels a terrible current pulsing through her, can't understand where it is coming from, or why – only that it makes her feel sick to her stomach, and it had all started when she came around from the shot Alex had stabbed her with. How could Sawyer trust her? He had put Kate in an impossible situation earlier, where she'd had no choice but to trust him, and she hated him for that…

_Maybe he's one of them, _voices suggest in her mind, _how do you know you can trust him? How do you know what they did to him? _

She looks at him now with his shaven crop, with that bandage stained red on his head and the lights flashing over him… and she no longer recognizes him. He looks sick – pale and dark eyed, like when he'd been so feverish –

_Maybe he IS sick, Kate – maybe you are too…!_

But his eyes still anchor her, still assure her that he is on the level, on her side… and she lets him take her by the shoulders.

"_Kate…"_ He says, and he seems to be struggling with something terrible, like he knows he needs to tell her something, but can't bring himself to say it…

"What's happening Sawyer?" She demands although she doesn't want to hear, doesn't want to know what could scare this strong, brooding man before her, "What do you know…? _Tell me."_

As Sawyer gathers himself, she feels his hands tighten about her arms…she's never heard this deathly serious tone about his voice before, it makes her feel physically sick...

"Freckles you gotta listen to me real good now, okay? Ain't much time, can only say this once. You hear me?"

"I hear you." She bites her lip, eyes pleading with him to speak…

"Woke up, and find somebody's bin' tinkering inside my brain factory while I was out…"He speaks with great difficulty, as though not having taken it in yet himself yet..."Put in some kinda transmitter… tunes into your brain frequency."

Kate shoots wildly uncertain looks from him to Alex, as though praying one will burst into laughter and reveal the joke, and God how he wishes he could do that…

Suddenly she laughs. Not just a chuckle either, but the deep throated belly roar that Sawyer used to love hearing from such a skinny stripling of a girl. But now it doesn't amuse him. Now it brings goosebumps to his arms. He only stares at her miserably until she quits laughing – and her eyes flicker about in disbelief.

"What… you can't… you can't be _serious_ Sawyer…!" He just stares at her… and her smile falls away and as the shock hits, she murmurs, "You… you can't…"

Alex looks away miserably under Kates stare – if she has any more answers, she sure as hell ain't giving them up.

"_What for?"_ Kate spits coldly at Alex.

"I don't know," Alex says helplessly under their glares, _"I don't!_ I'm not a scientist, I just do as they tell me, I -- I don't know _why_ they want you..."

But Sawyer looks into Alex -- and she won't meet his eyes. Slitting his own at her he says in disbelief, "So no matter how far we go, they can always follow us, have this hold over us?"

"As long as the transmitters are in your heads." Alex says softly.

"Then we have to get far away! Mike was heading out towards a boat. Maybe if we hurry, we can still catch it –" Sawyer says with fraught hope, "Start this elevator moving --"

But Kate moves before him, staring up at him in a way he doesn't like.

"You have a… a transmitter… in your…" Kate says, and Sawyer can see her desperately fighting to stay present, not to retreat away inside herself, "You and Jack… that's what the screaming was? They put those…_ those things inside you?"_

Her chin is already quivering, and he hates himself for what he has to say next, the only thing he can say… "Freckles… _they did it to you too."_

She only looks up at him in shock. Alex watches tersely, her hand poised near her gun…

But Kate can't tear her eyes away from Sawyers. To break that moment in time would be to move on, to deal with the reality that she had been hurt, messed up inside, that there is some terrible organism burrowed beneath her _skin_ – how can she be pure again, clean, good when there is something so base and wrong inside her --!

"No…" She says softly, "Sawyer no. _No…"_

He is looking down at her with eyes full of pain, brow knitted… and gently he reaches out and cups her head. Shivers run through her like convulsions under his touch, like everything has been _magnified_ between them, until her body is one mass of heat, with her physical desire competing with her aching heart and longing –

_How is he doing this to me! _She thinks wildly as with his other hand, Sawyer reaches down and laces his fingers through her own. Gently, he brings her fingers up to rest on the bandage hidden beneath her hair…

"You gotta trust me now, Freckles…" He says softly, and she remembers she never answered him, never let him know that she did in the first place as he finishes, "You've just gotta trust me…"

"Yes." She breathes… and Sawyer smiles, then turns to Alex… _and is surprised to see something like betrayal on her face, _like this display of intimacy has knocked her for six. Wordlessly, she hits a button and the elevator squeals into life again.

When the elevator rumbles to a shaky stop and the doors open, Alex goes to peer around the door when Sawyer hisses urgently – "Alex – _Don't move." _Her eyes pin him questioningly and she involuntarily shrinks back against the wall. Sawyer is looking into the reflection on a window just out of the lift…

"What is it?" Kate hisses and Sawyer is _rigid --_

"Guard" He breathes, _"Coming straight for us --"_

His hand clenches around his Beretta –

"Sawyer don't do it --" Kate's eyes lock with his, and just for the briefest moment, Sawyer falters. Not because of her words, but because that godawful pulse of electricity is surging through him nastily,

_It'll come back around_

His eyes flare with sorrow and Kate closes her eyes –

_It'll come back AROUND _

Pistoning his shoulder out from the safety of the wall, Sawyer levels the gun straight in the face of –

-- a bespectacled scientist who grinds to a halt with a strangled cry, basket of food flying through the air and coke slurping down his crisp lab coat.

Sawyer stares at him in shock. This wasn't who he'd expected, this wasn't how it was supposed to _happen_ --

"Who are you?" The man quivers with wide eyes, adams apple bobbing wildly as he feigns bravery and fails miserably, _"What do you want!"_

"Who am I!" Sawyer cries in disbelief, "I gotta gun in your face and you're asking _me_ questions!" As Kate and Alex back him up Sawyer nods forwards to them quickly, "Go get Jack, I'll follow --" Then turns back to the shuddering lab technician with a freezing grin. "I'm gonna get us some answers from ole' _Chicken Nugget here."_

"Don't hurt him," Kate whispers to him with a pleading look as they rush past them, and the technician stammers hopefully,

"No, no don't hurt him!"

Sawyer stares at him in fury, desperately wanting the guy to make a move so he can put a bullet in him, needing to hate him just to find some kind of outlet for this anger, for what they _did_ to him –

But his eyes are distracted to the floor, to the overturned basket of food in a familiar Styrofoam package… and his stomach takes a slow, sickening dive.

"What are you eating?" He says softly.

The lab assistant looks ready to pass out with fear -- but he is thrown. "I – I, uh – _what!"_

_It can't be, _Sawyer thinks, _Dear Lord in Heaven, it can't. _

"The food. _Your breakfast." _He nearly chokes as he remembers,

_Fellow American, huh? Good for you. Missed the lunch rush. Whereabouts you from?_

And Sawyer can feel time slow again as he looks down into watery eyes, so similar to the ones he closed eternally on a stormy night, deep in his past, _"What is it?"_

"Shrimp in sauce!" The man whimpers, "Only two choices! Shrimp in mild sauce or --"

"Shrimp in hot sauce…" Sawyer finishes, suddenly feeling hot, _so hot and faint --_

"How did you know?" The man's eyes literally bulge, "How did you _know that --"_

_It'll come back AROUND!_

_This will end the same way as that night you killed Frank, _those voices jibe, as Sawyer reels, his mind spinning away from him, _You haven't changed an ounce._

Hiking the gun up at the technician, Sawyer pleads furiously, "What do you want? _Why are you doing this to me!"_

* * *

**Oh the tension! PLEASE MAKE ME A HAPPY CAMPER AND LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK X**


	10. Jack in the box

**Chapter 10**

**Jack in the box**

Stopping one foot from sprinting in front of the other right now is perhaps the hardest thing Kate has ever had to do.

Kate has led a wicked life, against most people's standards – she has lived the worst years of his life on the run, always with one eye over her shoulder and the other on the never ending road ahead, heart blackened and cynical, her stomach in perpetual knots. Kate has never rested on an easy conscience at night. Her pain is a constant ache in the back of her mind, and the love she has known has been the root of it all. Love for her mother, scarred physically and unfathomably deeper by Wayne, and her love for Tom, untainted through even the darkest times, a love so deep and all consuming it had nearly been the death of her.

Kate is a woman of extremes – and when she had turned in a car seat what seems like another life ago to see Tom's lifeless face staring back, a part of her had died that night with him. Because it was her fault, irreversibly and undeniably. She would never be the same. There were no _takesy_ _backsey's_ like when they were six and Tom had pushed Katie over, skinning her knees and calling her clumsy, and how she'd cried,

_Tommy! You take that back! Take it back! _

And he had done, because all good men (and boys) had their moments of madness, and maybe he'd loved her, even then.

_Takesy backsey's Katie. Din't mean it._

But _takesy_ _backsey's_ have been left in her scarred past, defunct and useless… and now there is no calling _time_ _out_ of a crazy situation which had spiralled out of her control long ago.

She told herself then, as she ran away leaving Tom behind like a rat slinking into the shadows, that she would never allow herself peace. She didn't deserve it. And she would never let anybody close to her again – because once they had their pickaxe holds in her fragile heart, she was vulnerable – trip over love, you can get up. Fall in love and you fall forever.

She has tripped over Jack. As she finally looks in through a steamy pane of glass on him, it feels like she is that six year old again, clambering up with skinned knees and scalding tears, knowing he too has been interfered with, damaged by these Others, Dharma…

"_Wait!" _Alex snags her arm before she can open the door and pulls her into the shadows. Kate glares dangerously at her, the need to find Jack, to make sure he's safe almost unbearable. But to her annoyance Alex doesn't flinch – and Kate notices something strange. When Alex isn't around Sawyer, she is _different_ – she's no longer a gangly, awkward teenager… but _colder_ somehow –

_Next time, they will expect more co-operation. You are on your first warning._

"You have to let me asses him." Alex says earnestly, "If he is too far gone, we'll have to knock him out."

"Is that really necessary -!"

"If the Dharma Agents have full control of his cerebral facilities they'll instantly know you've escaped." Alex draws a hypodermic out of her backpack, and pins Kate with a sadly resolute stare, "Whatever he knows, _they'll_ know. And however much he'll hate it, he'll lead the Agents straight to us."A steely resolve clamps Alex, and she says, "So is this really necessary? You decide."

Kate takes the hypodermic suspiciously. 'What's in it?"

"Its called the Ultimate Solution."

"I didn't ask what it was called, I asked what was _in_ it --"

But Alex has moved inside the cell already, leaving Kate to look after her worriedly…

_How can you trust her!_

As she stands in the doorway, watching Alex enter through a glass blast door, her stomach turns. Her survival instincts are fined tuned after so long on the run – and her stomach dives in that sickening way she has come to fear, as her heart begins to race and her mind yammers at her that _something is about to go very wrong here –_

Mind overtaking rational will, Kate dodges into the holding cell.

Inside, head throbbing from the continual roar of the air conditioning, she looks uneasily to a workstation set up outside Jack's room, fixed with video monitors and computers. It looks like whoever left from here left in a hurry – their coffee is still steaming in the lamplight. She is adept at seeing the details, and they don't add up now. Where _is_ everybody…?

* * *

"What are you talking about!" The scientist stutters fearfully as he looks down the barrel of the gun… _"Please_ – look, I'm not here to hurt you. My names J.P Garrett, please -- be reasonable here!" 

"_Reasonable?"_ Sawyer advances with fire in his eyes, "You guys dive into my brain, ditch me with a damn _radio_ in there and you wanna _reason_ with me!_"_

"The bandage --" Garrett's eyes fly from the gun and light up on Sawyers head, "You're a specimen! How did you escape --"

But Sawyer's eyes are distracted by that damn carton of food, discarded on the floor – Christ, he's sweating his ass off, it's thrown him completely –

_I'll go with the HOT _

With an angry yell he stamps on the shrimp, grinding it into the metal gantry – and the electrical pulse in his head kicks up into overdrive, piercing deep, _stabbing_ –

* * *

A printer spews out a continuous glut of paper into an overflowing bin, and as she approaches it, Kate's head twinges – the electrical pulse shivers through her as she picks up the paper… 

_Co-codamol and rest that's all need _

_Don't look back no head hurts _

_Boy in A&E need to get his (X-rays?)_

_Pages and pages of half-translated thought processes._ Horrified, Kate's eyes travel up through the glass… and as the paper slips from her hands and she steps inside the bright white room, all rational thought in her dies.

Alex stands over Jack's body, looking down nervously. Kate approaches that bed as though moving through quicksand. She can barely move forth. Electrodes are attached to his forehead, and as the machines whir over him, she notices he isn't unconscious – his eyes stare forth blankly, locked someplace far away from her –

As Alex quickly removes the electrodes, Kate kneels by him at a loss, and knows she has to be strong. Jack has always been her rock, her moral compass and now he _needs_ her to be strong.

"Jack?" She says softly, stroking the side of his face, unable to believe how haggard he looks, how haggard and sick, "Jack, can you hear me?"

Alex looks down in shock, "No! No, _don't wake him up --!"_

Jack's eyes flicker – and blearily fix on Kate.

* * *

"_James --!"_

The Beretta flies back to fix on Garrett's chest before he can approach Sawyer, who stares at him incredulously. The scientists hands fly back up and he says quickly,

"James Ford. That's you, isn't it?"

The shit is hitting the fan, Sawyer knows it, but is helpless but to demand in bewilderment, "How the hell do _you_ know!"

"I know many things." Garrett giggles nervously, "My team have been studying you for a long time --"

"Why?" Sawyer advances, eyes burning, "Why me? Why the Doc, _why Kate?"_

Suddenly Garrett smiles. Widely… and from his mouth, Sawyer hears that familiar whisper, voice hitching up through blood and haemorrhaging insides --

"_You don't have any idea what you're doin', do ya?"_

And as Sawyer stares back in horror, it is no longer Garrett standing in the glaring hall. Frank Duckett stands before him now, no longer a voice or an illusion, but here, really _here_, dripping wet with a bloody flower blossoming out from a bullet hole in his _chest_ –

Sawyer grits his teeth and doggedly fixes his arm taunt – it wants to shake – "You got three seconds to tell me _what you've done to me --"_

* * *

Delicious relief rockets through every fibre of Kate's being as she laughs down at him in uncontrollable release, _"Jack…!" _

But Alex pivots forwards, urgentlytrying to pull her away, "Don't talk to him – _Kate!"_

Jack looks up in shock, recognition speeding through him. "Kate… _Kate, are you okay!"_

And no sooner has Jack recognized Kate, all hell breaks loose. Red hazard lights explode on, bathing everything in a bloody haze –

* * *

-- and emergency klaxons shriek down the hall. Sawyer freezes, desperately grappling onto his nerves, and for a moment he just stares at Duckett, bathed in blood red light, a vision straight from the pits of his darkest nightmares is staring down the barrel of his gun with malevolent malice as a tannoy wails -- 

"_Warning! Specimen insubordination! Warning!" _

Wordlessly Sawyer shoves the man roughly toward the cell, heart pounding with adrenaline –

* * *

As Kate helps Jack sit, she hugs him tightly as the klaxons blare, "I'm okay, can you get up, can you stand --" 

"I've been going out of my _mind_ --" Jack stands woozily, furiously trying to get his bearings quickly, "They told me you were dead. _That they'd killed you --"_

"It's okay, I'm here --" She slings his arm over her shoulder, and she's in her element now, amidst the madness somehow her mind flicks into automatic, "Come on we've got to get _out_ of here --"

Suddenly Sawyer barrels in -- Alex immediately hikes up her gun –

"_Easy girl!"_ Sawyer ducks as a bullet ricochets over his head, "HEY!" He yells angrily – then gestures quickly, "Come on! Company's coming!"

As they run down the halls Kate sights Garrett and yells heatedly, "What are you bringing _him_ for!"

Sawyers eyes flash at her, _"You_ told me not to shoot him!"

"I didn't say bring him _with_ you!" She says in furious impatience, "Damn it Sawyer we're supposed to be keeping quiet!"

"Look little Miss Stealth, you wanna yell at me about being quiet after we escape the alarms YOU set off!" She glares at him and he smiles at her. Lord, he loves it when she gets mad --

As Alex quickly leads them down flights of stairs, Sawyer flips a glance to Jack – and though he'll never admit it, it reassures the hell out of him that the good doctor's still breathing. And hell, he don't look so bad! Don't know what all the damn fuss was about –

"Hey Doc! Some rescue huh?"

"If good is alerting the entire complex to your rescue, then yes, well done!" Jack says, and as Sawyer turns back, he realizes Duckett has gone. Garrett anxiously runs alongside him again, his wet eyes glowing with fear. Man, this creeps him out…

Kate yells to Garrett, "Can't you stop the alarms!"

"I can't!" The scientist wraggles an accusing finger back in Jacks direction, "I didn't set them off! _He did!"_

"_Forget it --"_ Sawyer says, shoving Garrett roughly down the last flight of stairs, "Pork pie's gonna get us the hell out of here --"

"What!" The scientist quivers wildly, _"Are you insane?"_

"You really wanna find out Jello?" Sawyer jams his gun in Garretts back –

"No – you don't _understand_._" _Garrett looks to Jack urgently, "If you take him with you, he'll lose his mind – you all will! He needs the medication." His frantic eyes spear Sawyer and Kate with self righteous ire, "You two will understand. This time tomorrow night you'll understand _and you'll wish you'd_ _listened_ –"

"We're leaving." Sawyer says pressing the gun into his forehead, _"Move it."_

"There's no way –" Garrett stutters painfully, "Even if I get you out of here, they'll follow, you'll never escape --"

Thundering footsteps on the stairs above their heads make them break into a sprint.

"Where does this take us?" Kate demands from Garrett who wracks his brains, puffing,

"Subterranean levels 45 to 60 --"

"Subterranean!" Sawyer bellows, "You're supposed to be getting us _out!"_

Gunfire strafes from above and they hug the walls. Flying chips of metal whine about and the stench of gunpowder nearly makes Sawyer gag in such close quarters. He returns fire for the hell of it as Alex suddenly grinds to a halt and drags him down into a side corridor. Before he can protest, the others have followed and she is pulling up a panel of the flooring gantry --

"Where the hell are you going now!" He says in disbelief. She's trying to kill him, he swears it -- if it ain't vents or crazy needles, it's this. As she heaves the panel aside he peers beneath it, where a small cavity runs beneath the light fittings. Beneath the open _electrical_ light fittings.

"Lordy buttercup, there's a helluva sting in those bad boys!" He says uncertainly but she is already down and he is left to help down Jack, Kate refuses all help as usual, and he damn near breaks Garrett's neck getting him down. But finally, just as the footsteps have grown into an all-enveloping roar, as the whickering bullets rise behind him, he takes a deep breath – and lowers himself down into the cavity.

He damn near fries himself on the power lines, but as he drops down and pulls the panel back overhead, he lands besides Kate. It's a goddamn sewage pipe. _Wonderful._

"Lookin' good Freckles," He smiles at her, covered in sludgy water but she looks to him worriedly.

"Are you okay? You looked like you'd seen a ghost back there." Sawyer looks to her in amazement – when did she get so damn good at reading him? He loves it in her suddenly, the fact that in the middle of all the chaos, she had noticed. But he catches the others eyes staring back at them awaiting, and Alex holds a finger to her ruby lips – just as thundering footsteps pound over their heads, casting stark black shadows over them.

* * *

"Check everywhere," A furious command pierces the air, and Sawyer's blood slowly boils. _Henry Gale, that sonofabitch – _"They won't have gone far, and for God's sake crack Jack's mind! I don't wanna see anymore of those fucking stars okay? The other two will take time, but you've _had_ time to work on cracking Jack, Agent Blue." 

Footsteps directly over Sawyers head, "I apologize Sir. My men will work harder at deciphering him --" Suddenly a soft crackling, like a voice speaking over a head set, and Agent Blue barks, "They are heading for levels 25-45! Come on!"

* * *

The footsteps thunder off, and Sawyer looks to Jack in astonishment through the darkness. Something cold is settling around his heart, some terrible realisation… and although he hears himself asking, he suddenly ain't sure he wants to know the answer... 

"You have a hand in that, Doc…?"

Jack only looks back to him calmly... and Sawyer thinks maybe Alex was right. Something about Jack isn't the same – but he can't put his finger on what…

"They know what I'm thinking, Sawyer. So…" Jack's eyes grow faraway, "I just tell them what I want them to think. Sometimes it works."

Something about the distance in Jack's dark eyes gives Kate the shivers. It's a look she can't even begin to understand, so unlike him... she exchanges a look with Sawyer, who she knows has picked up on it as well...

"Thank God this is one of them," Alex says trudging forth up the tunnel, "Come on. I have some of the medication stored topside; we'll grab it when we get out of here."

"Topside!" Sawyer scoffs, "You're talkin' like we're in the damn _army_, G.I Jane --"

"Topside," Alex insists, shooting a glare back to him, _"As in above water."_

Sawyer, Kate and Jack crunch to aunited stop in shock. And it is Jack, closest to Alex, who gathers himself enough to be the one to ask the god awful question…

"Alex… where _are_ we!"


	11. Second chances

**Chapter 11**

**Second chances**

Alex is silent under Jack's penetrating gaze, and he emphasises more strongly,

"_Where are we Alex?"_

Alex returns Jack stare levelly, then exchanges a glance with Garrett. The anxious scientist shrugs widely, and exhaling heavily, Alex sighs. "This is 'The Staff'… Degroot and Hanso's top secret underwater facility." Garrett shoots her a warning look, and she snaps, "Well you tell them then!"

"Who is Dharma?" Kate demands coldly. Nervously Garrett's eyes flicker to them, resting on their bandaged heads…

"It's a little late for secrets, don't you think?" Alex stresses, "They're part of this now!"

Like he is revealing the secrets of his eternal soul over hot coals, Garrett shifts…

"The Dharma Initiative, according to my boss, Dr. Marvin Candle, is a multipurpose social science research facility. The purpose of the Initiative is to create a large-scale communal research compound where scientists and free-thinkers from around the globe can pursue research in meteorology, psychology, parapsychology, zoology, electromagnetism, and utopian social engineering –"

Footsteps clatter overhead and they all shrink back into the shadows. Once they are in the clear, Sawyer growls, "Fascinating as this is, could we have this lil' pow wow someplace I'm not up to my knees in crap?"

Jack glares at him suddenly, and Sawyer is shocked at the look of pure venom in the usually placid doctors eyes.

"Why don't you shut up Sawyer? We're finally getting some _answers_ here –"

"And hell I'm the first to be thankful for that Doc! But you wanna wait round here that's your do's. Me? I'm pushing on." Sawyer shoves Garrett getting him moving, "He can yak as he goes!"

As they sprint through the sewage pipes which interlink and weave onwards, Garrett continues, "Currently Dharma is conducting psychological experiments to determine how far the human mind can be pushed before breaking – and how much a factor love, pain, jealousy, grief and human connection is involved in the matter. Dharma are developing a new super weapon – a mind infiltration gas… which will ultimately result in complete mind control."

They grind to such an abrupt halt that Kate nearly ploughs into Sawyer – and Lord, its like she nearly electrocutes him. He notices how her touch seems highly charged, leave a tingling sensation –

"Mind control?" Jack repeats, staring coldly at Alex and Garrett as though they are aliens, "So you've been _testing_ it on us — !" Garrett's mouth yawns, about to respond, but Jack suddenly grabs Garrett by the neck and with lightning reflexes slams Garrett into the sewer wall – "You're using our heads as testing grounds for your experiments! What the hell are you thinking! We're not savages, _we're people –"_

"Doc!" Sawyer calls in disbelief, _"Hey Doc, easy!"_

But Jack's hand clenches tighter around Garrett's throat belying him, as his eyes blaze with fury, as Sawyer grapples with him, _'You can't do this to people – you CAN'T!" _Sawyer shoves Jack away from Garrett and slams him back against the opposite wall.

"The hell are you doin'," He hisses down at him,"This ain't you, Doc! _You wanna kill the one guy can get us outta here!" _Jack glares up at him suddenly, poisonously. And the pulse sears through Sawyers head from that poisonous electrode, it throbs in waves of hatred –

"_She drew the short straw when she got left with you, little Jimmy Ford." _Jack grits in his face, eyes dancing with malice, _"You don't help people. It's not in your nature."_

Behind, Garrett massages his next fearfully, eyes flitting about, and Kate and Alex watch closely, unable to hear Jack's words… and Sawyer reacts like these words have slapped him. There is a horrible, black rage boiling in the pit of his gut, begging to be released, and the current from the electrode _is stoking the fire --_

"_What did you say!"_ Sawyer breathes, winded, and Kate suddenly separates them, shocked at the look on Jack's face –

"Would you two cut it out! Can't we please just put this on hold till we're out of here?" She's looking between them pleading like they've both gone insane, but Sawyer doesn't hear her, those words keep ringing in his head, _his thoughts, _straight out of Jack's mouth…

* * *

But Jack suddenly blinks hard and looks about in confusion, as though unsure how he has been cornered this way. "What…?" He looks to Kate, sees her anger, "Yeah. Yeah…" Shaking her head Kate trudges on. Alex and Garrett are looking at him troubled, and Sawyer's looking at him with bloody murder in his eyes. What just _happened_ here..? 

As Alex and Garrett move on up the tunnel, Jack looks to Sawyer, bewildered at the hatred he sees in his eyes.

"Sawyer…?" Jack suddenly has a horrible feeling, his chest constricts tight… the last minutes are a black blur in his memory, and the electrode in his head is a pounding, throbbing headache of pain. "Sawyer, what did I do?"

But Sawyer's lip curls in disgust, and wordlessly he walks away, leaving Jack to watch after him worriedly…

* * *

Suddenly a ratcheting clank of machinery rumbles like thunder through the tunnel, and everyone freezes. As Kate turns, she watches in horror as metal panels begin locking over the ceiling of the tunnel, sealing it from the lights, sealing them in _blackness_ -- 

And as the panels progress up the tunnel, a heady roar of water thunders –

"They've found us!" Garrett yells in fear, "They locked onto Jack, they know where we are!"

And as Jack turns, a thundering tidal wave of water rockets up the sewage pipe towards them and he yells _"RUN!"_

* * *

Heart pounding Kate turns and runs, as that all enveloping roar builds, deafening and bearing down – and before she knows it, it hits her with the power of a sledgehammer to her back. Slammed from her feet she is thrown along in it's battering current, choking, fighting for air – 

Suddenly there is a light at the end of the tunnel and the crash of an imminent drop rings through the air -- blindly, she grapples for a handhold on the rushing walls, _anything to hold onto –_

And as the tunnel ends and the water sweeps over the edge in a furious waterfall, she grapples hold of a creaking ladder, and heaves herself up against the beating onslaught of waves against her back, trying to drag her down –

The ladder creaks as Alex also grapples hold, and Jack also follows her up -

Kate looks back down on the rushing torrent of water frantically –

"_Sawyer! Garrett!"_ Down to the others, who cling wet and shocked on the lower rungs, _"Where are they!"_

"_Sawyer!"_ Alex yells suddenly, at a shape near the fall's frothing edge. Kate reels around to see Sawyer, clinging to a fractured pipe and hanging out over the edge of the stomach churning drop into blackness. He has his arm outstretched – and as Kate looks over the falls, she sees Garrett dangling over the falls, getting battered by the crushing water.

* * *

Frantically trying to hold onto the wet pipe, Sawyer leans as far as he can over the edge, unsure why in hell he should care if this guy falls to his death –

_This ain't just any guy, _his mind yammers over the roaring waves, _He's got Duckett in him, and you can't let him die again you have to SAVE him --_

"_Grab on!" _He yells, as Garrett writhes under the weight of the waves, _"Garrett you gotta grab on!"_

"_I can't reach you!" _Garrett screams, voice raw with terror, _"Sawyer it's to far!"_

"_Damn it Garrett!" _Sawyer arches over as far as he can – the pipe strains in outrage – _"Damn it you gotta try!"_

Garrett's hand clenches through the foaming waves – Sawyer reaches down – and snags his hand. With a guttural yell of pain, he heaves Garrett up, the old wound in his shoulder shrieking in pain. He locks his arms around the sodden scientists waist and heaves him up onto the tiny ledge, where they slump against the wall in exhaustion.

Garrett has lost his glasses in the flood, and is rubbing at his red eyes dazedly, gasping for breath.

"You… you saved me. _Why!"_

Sawyer only glares at him tiredly, cold and wet… why indeed? Is he really losing his mind, seeing the ghost of a man he had murdered in Garrett, is it Dharma, planting thoughts and notions? Christ, his head hurts with all these conspiracy theories… but what if it's real? What if, somehow in the middle of all this madness, second chances are given? Maybe in watching over Garrett he can find the redemption he had been searching for ever since Frank had breathed his last words, thick with blood and death on his face in a downpour one hellish night…

Returning Garrett's mystified gaze, he notices that amongst the fear in the awkward scientist, there is now a new found respect there. And Sawyer says softly,

"_Caus I think I have to."_


	12. Abandoned

**Chapter 12**

**Abandoned**

"Jack," Garrett grabs hold of him as soon as he hauls himself onto the ledge above the thundering fall of water, "Jack they got in your head, didn't they?"

As Sawyer clambers up onto the gantry Jack looks about with a cornered expression, gives a forced laugh, "What, you think _I had something to do with this --?"_

"I know it," Garrett says resolutely, and Sawyer marvels at the new resolve in the previously jelly legged scientist. "Back just before they opened the floodgates on us, did you notice anything strange? A, a cramp, a, _a_ _feeling_, maybe coming from your implant –?"

"No –" Jack backs away, eyes searching Kate's face for rationality, "No, I'm – I'm _fine_, I didn't, this – _this_ _is_ _ridiculous!"_

"So your trying to strangle Dr Strangelove here, that's _normal_ for you is it?" Sawyer growls, stepping forth and Jack shakes his head straining to remain calm,

"I don't know what you're talking about!"

"Look Doc, you decide to go all _Carrie_ on us couldya give us a little warning?" Sawyer retorts and to his amazement, Garret grabs Jack roughly, his nervous stammer gone, bug eyes burning.

"Listen to me now – if you want me to help you, you have to trust me. We don't have much time. I know a trick you can use that will scramble the signal from the implant –"

"You're crazy!" Jack laughs, skin pale and waxy in the light, _"You're crazy! _There IS no signal!" He turns to the others vehemently, enunciating each word fiercely, "Don't you see? This guy said it himself – this is a _psychological_ _experiment_. The button, the hatch, _these_ _implants_ – they're not real! They just wanna see how far they can push us. _What they can make us_ _believe –"_

His hands tear at the bandage on his head and Kate steps forth warningly, eyes flashing, _"Jack don't –"_

"_What!"_ He laughs wildly, wild logic rife in his eyes, "They can't make me _believe_ this Kate! And you shouldn't either." And with a victorious rip, he pulls the last of the bandage from his head. The silence which cuts out Kate's reply is thick and fast as everyone stares at Jack's head…

"What…there's nothing _there_…" Jack's says fiercely, again and again, like a deranged mantra he is using to soothe himself as his hands run across his cropped hair frantically. He turns to look into the wall of the tunnel, metal beaten smooth as a mirror… _"Nothing there… there's nothing… nothing there…"_

The smile drops from Jack's face, leaving behind only horror.

* * *

There is a small shaved patch above his left ear, where a small stitched cut runs around the base of a raise bump about the size of a dollar coin. Sawyer can't tear his eyes away from the damn thing, _it's_ _hypnotic_, knowing there's an identical bump on his own head. _On Kate's…_

As Sawyer watches him, shoulder throbbing with pain, he knows how this must be killing the Doc. Now there was a time when the only painkiller worth a damn to Sawyer was bringing Saint Jacko down a peg or two – but for some reason, it don't bring the same pleasure it usually does. Now, he feels damn near sick, seeing that look of bewilderment in the usually unshakable Jack, and he suddenly wonders if Jack's obsessive need to know and understand, the need for balance and a sense of order in this place where sense and order's all shot to hell will push him over the edge…

With a massive display of self control, Jack turns back to them, and his eyes blaze first on Alex, then Garrett. His is voice thick with a rage he will never release… "What's the trick, Garrett…"

Garrett steps forth thankfully, and meets his eye. "It's simple. The transmitter has only been implanted in you for what, two, three days?"

"Two," Sawyer says.

"_Three,"_ Jack grits softly, and Sawyer could kick himself. He keep's forgetting the Doc's gotta head start on the ole' psychic abilities front.

"Right," Garrett says, "So think of a brick wall. As large and thick as you can. Imagine the bricks, the cement, and imagine building it bigger… and bigger."

Off Jack's confused look, Garrett sighs, "It worked on the last specimen we had! They, they managed to keep us out of their head for a long time…"

"Last specimen?" Kate steps forth, "Wait a minute, you've done this _before?"_

Garrett looks painfully ashamed… and Jack steps forth, heart flaming for all those who have endured this before him, have been mutilated for this terrible end, and he burns with a hatred for Garrett and all those like him, who would take human lives in their hands and play God, "Who else did you _use_, Garrett? How many more?"

Sadly, Garrett looks up, and Sawyer who has been watching this all silently knows Garrett will never answer. The man has been caught up in something bigger than himself, carried along in a situation he didn't agree with but was powerless to stop. And he sees Duckett in him again; caught up in a situation he had lost all control of,

_Tell Hibbs I would have paid_

And he knows suddenly, with iron conviction that Garrett is his second chance. He's never been more certain of anything in his lousy life. But this crazy island sent him many signs along the way, leading him here to this man, to this challenge…

"Anyway… the technique works." Garrett says softly, staring to his feet miserably, "I don't care what you think of me. You're right to hate me, if you do. But I want to help you. I mean that." He turns to Sawyer, "I owe you one. So I'll get you out of here, okay? You don't deserve this."

Sawyer only stares down at him as Jack makes a disgusted sound and continues off up the tunnel. Sawyer taps his bandage tiredly, "You owe me a lot more than _one_, Hoss."

* * *

As they work their way down the wet gantries and walkways which surround the thundering fall of water from the above pipe, Alex drops back with Sawyer. "So where you guys from?" She says anxiously, handing him more ammo for the Beretta, "I haven't seen new specimens here for years now." 

"Plane." He grunts. His head is pounding nastily, the transmitter burning hot. "Damn thing fell outta the sky. And can't you come up with a better tag for me than _specemin?"_

"What, something flowery, something romantic?" Alex quips and Sawyer narrows his eyes at her. Suddenly, his blood is racing, burning him up.

"Funny." And as she rolls her eyes at him and purses her lips, he imagines kissing her suddenly. The notion comes out of nowhere and explodes behind his eyes, dragging her close, covering her mouth with his, feeling her respond --

"Can I take the Beretta?" She offers her military standard issue Socum pistol, but Sawyer is uncertain. She smiles shyly, "I can handle it."

Slapping the fresh mag into the chamber, Sawyer sighs with a tired sparkle in his eye, "Well I got me some pretty big guns, Calamity Jane! Think you can handle those too?"

"You're disgusting." She shakes her head, shoving the last of her ammunition at him - but he catches that look in her eye, that look of lust. He's preyed on the glimmer of that look as a vulture will prey on its dying quarry. _He_ _knows_.

And as he drops back in surprise, Kate comes up next to him. The crash of the falling water has built so loud he has to yell to be heard. "I think she likes me!" Kate ignores him, and he keeps pace with her quickly, trying to focus on the small matter of getting the hell out of here, instead of the sudden burning in his pants…

"We need to keep an eye on ole' hormonal up front." Kate glances to him tiredly and he elaborates, "Jack!"

"He's got it covered Sawyer." Kate says distantly, ponytail swishing with her pace, "Jack's a strong man, he can handle it."

Sawyer has to resist the urge to laugh his ass off, "Well y'know I love it when a gal's optimistic Freckles, but I don't fancy being the one strangled next time John Edwards up front goes Jekyll and Hyde on our asses! So I think _we_ need a plan –"

* * *

Kate has been keeping her distance from Sawyer for a reason. Something is very wrong with the way she is feeling right now. Her temperature is searing even though the chill in these pipes steams her breath before her eyes, and she is sweating heavily even though this pace would normally never faze her. It's coming from her head she realizes with a sick understanding, the implant is radiating waves of nausea through her… nausea and a lust so strong she can barely walk straight. It feels as though her groin is on fire, pounding with an animal urge with is not her own. It is hard enough to stand it when she is focused on the task at hand, but when Sawyer grabs her hand and yanks her towards him, the fire which explodes inside her at his touch makes her gasp. 

He looks down at her, surprised at her reaction as she wrenches her arm viciously from his grip, hating him suddenly for doing this to her. She feels his gaze probing into her, asking that unspoken question, _what's wrong, _and those eyes, _she feels them undressing her, on her body –_

"Optimistic! I'm not an optimist Sawyer. There _is_ no planning." She turns on him, her eyes blazing coldly, "Whatever is happening to us, it's totally out of our control now – _he_ is totally out of our control. So no, I don't want to make a _plan_. Alright? And I don't wanna talk about it right now."

He looks to her in shock. For just a moment, he doesn't recognize that icy distance in her eyes at all. There seems to be something else going on here, something in her which has shaken her badly. But he'll be damned if he knows what…

"Jesus, cool it…!" He says, a little hurt. "All I'm sayin' is keep your guard up alright! I'm sorry I spoke."

They walk on in heavy silence a moment as her look wanes, and she winces. He glances sideways at her, knowing he'll probably get shot down for this, but…

"Your head alright?"

"Yeah." She says a little too quickly, "It's fine. How about yours?"

"Oh, peachy keen, jellybean." He can't quite make out what's up with Kate, its like she's seething over something…

"You're incredible, you know that?" She spits. He looks to her, bracing himself.

"Well hell darlin, of course I do."

"You're actually _flirting_ with her." Kate shakes her head in disbelief, and Sawyer sees she is sweating as badly as he is. Is he as white as her? She looks fit to pass out…

"Hell, I'm just as red blooded as the next guy honey. Gotta get my kicks somewhere." He says pointedly, and she stops. Looks to him with an expression he can't read at all, and it suddenly makes him furious. _"What!"_

"You never change." She says, and now there's sadness there. The fire lining his stomach turns to lead as he gets in close,

_"Careful_. Do not throw stones from glass _fuckin'_ houses Kate. Neither do you."

She looks at him as if he has just torn her heart from her chest and stomped on it, like she loathes every fibre of him,

_And if she really knew you Jimmy, she'd hate your guts_

"That's better." He grits down at her, transfixed suddenly by her lips, cupids bow glistening maddeningly, begging to be kissed… and before he can stop himself the words are out. "I think it was _you_ who said I make you sick. Remember that lil' compliment? I'm at deaths door, and I still don't qualify for an ounce of your goddamn emotion."

She clenches her jaw. How much of her speech to Wayne had he actually heard when he was supposed to be unconscious! That's just like him, she thinks suddenly, pretending to be unconscious so he could listen in on things that weren't meant for his ears –

"I wasn't _talking_ to you." She struggles to control her temper, her hands itching to run through his cropped hair which glistens with sweat, and she can't meet his eyes --

"Oh I'm sorry!" His voice cracks with sarcasm, "Did our pal Mr Ed make an appearance again? Or maybe the kamikaze boar, maybe the goddamn _polar boar!" _He feels her body close, the unbelievable heat radiating from her, _and how he longs to brush the sweat from her face –_

His voice drops as he pleads, "It was just you… and me in there. Now you weren't having yourself a little chat with me… then who _were_ you talkin' to?"

He watches her wrestling with her god awful trust issues, a very real struggle in her eyes. And he thinks, if she tells me, she'll prove me wrong. I said she hasn't changed… but she could tell me, and Lord, she could _win_ –

But her look dissolves. And as he watches her look away he feels a triumphant surge rush through him.

_You're no different to me. No matter how much you want to be, you're no better, you're not so perfect or holy or pure. _

Swallowing heavily, he shakes his head in disappointment. "You're just as fucked up in all this as me, Freckles. Best get used to it, now."

"Guys come on!" Alex yells from down below, and shaking her head, Kate turns away from him. They approach the group ahead who have crowded to a stop at the base of the stairs where a churning vat of sewage roils. All kinds of crap float around here – chair cushions, metal panelling, old plastic cups, and his stomach sinks when she realizes that the group are standing looking at the sewage…

"What's the deal?" Kate says, hands on her hips and ready for action. Garrett and Alex exchange looks.

"There's no way we can get to the upper levels," Alex says carefully, "So Garrett and I were talking… and we think we may have found a way out."

Sawyer looks to the sewage in disgust. "Please tell me it involves guns and lotsa running…"

But to his dismay, Alex begins wading down into the water. "There's a hatch down here that leads into the subterranean engine rooms. All the waste is bypassed through there and pumped out into the sea – we can follow it and escape through the waterway. Come on!"

Sawyer could think of a million better ways of blazing their way outta this insane asylum without swimming through vats of industrial waste, and as he watches the group disappear one by one beneath the water, he hangs back. Kate turns to him as Jack dives down, antsy and ready to roll.

"What are you waiting for?"

"Ladies first," He grimaces a smile, and rolling her eyes she grips his hand and leads him down.

* * *

The swim (or underwater dodge around junk) is one Sawyer will try and burn from his memory its so damn disgusting, but as they swim beneath girders and gantries, he sees Alex is right. The current picks up along here, hinting towards another fall or a final push. He hopes it's the last. 

When he breaks the surface he is bobbing just beneath a gantry, and as he watches Kate vault up he gets a pretty good view of her ass in her soaking denims. Well, clouds and silver linings, and all that, he muses as he kicks himself up onto the gantry next to her and looks about.

They are standing in a chamber with a bright white glass tube in the middle, pulsing with gas. It is reinforced with an airlock and numerous warning signs. _Lovely_. He also notices a clock the same as the one in the hatch is counting down on the wall. It is on the final minute countdown. A lone Guard turns at the console and Alex and Sawyer immediately draw their weapons, advancing. The Guard stands, hands shooting up and he looks about fearfully. "Shit. Shit, where'd _you_ guys come from!"

"You can't _smell_ it, boy!" Sawyer growls as he advances, and gestures to Alex, "Find your waterway or whatever you was lookin' for, I got this guy."

Alex sprints to where the sewage pipes give way into the waterway and wrenches at the grating which covers their escape hatch. It doesn't budge, and she turns quickly, "A little help please!"

Kate and Jack rush over, but Garrett is pacing by the equipment.

"J.R?" The Guard says in disbelief at Garrett, "Jesus, why you swimming through shit with these people!"

"Long story, Davey." Garrett says as he ponders the screens. Hundreds of monitors jut on the wall, showing scenes of men at workstations, in laboratories, in rest areas. Suddenly the timer starts going off, and Sawyer looks over to the others quickly.

"What's goin' _on_ over there, we golden?"

With Sawyers attention momentarily diverted, the Guard's hand flips a silent alarm switch, as Kate and Jack rush back up with Alex, who calls, "Grates been welded shut – we're gonna have to find another way –"

"Another way!" Sawyer repeats incredulously, "Honey I don't know if you noticed, but there _ain't _no other way!"

Suddenly Garrett who is watching the screens lets out a strangled cry – "Guys, _we've got company!"_

They crowd around the monitors as the timer hits 20 seconds.

In corridors and hallways Guards crowd, in stairwells they steam downwards –

"Get into the vat!" Alex shouts, pointing towards the central airway, "It's the release airway, it's about to go off – we can get out that way!"

"_Wait!_ You don't know what's _in_ there –" Jack urges desperately but Garrett is already typing in a code into the airlock door as Kate steps forwards –

"What choice have we got? You wanna stay here and let them finish whatever they started with us!"

_9_

Garret is already opening the first blast door, hurries inside. Sawyer turns to Kate – "Come on! It's gonna blow!"

_8_

Kate looks at Jack pleadingly – "Jack, please – come with us –"

_7_

Alex steps forwards and grabs Jack, pulling him into the tube –

_6_

Suddenly a gunshot rings out and Kate goes down.

_5_

Alex has manhandled Jack into the inner tube, he fights her, _"KATE!" _

Sawyer spins and shoots the Guard who is holding a smoking Socum pistol with a yell of rage --

_4_

Sawyer drops next to Kate but she has gone heavy – her eyes have closed and it's more than he can stand – not this, _not now!_

_She drew the short straw when she got left with you, little Jimmy Ford._

"_Kate!"_ He cries, dragging her into his arms – as he grips his hand away it is slick with blood --

_3_

The door seals Jack and Alex inside the main airway as a thick cloud of grey gas pumps about the chamber --

_2_

Jack slams his hands on the tube and just before the gas envelopes him, _Sawyer meets his eyes –_

_1_

And as Klaxons shriek, a tremendous burst of light and explosion of sound burns through the room. Sawyer pulls Kate close, the impact shaking everything in the room… he closes his eyes...

And when he opens them and the whiteness fades, his frantic gaze finds the tube through bleary white afterimages...

The tube is empty.

_They have been left behind._

**PLEASE BE KIND ENOUGH TO REVIEW:)**


	13. When the rain comes

**Chapter 13**

**What side will you be on when the rain comes?**

Air.

Blasting, whipping, choking. Hurtling so fast he can't draw breath enough to scream.

Heart yammering, electrode burning, body pulsing with a current so strong he thinks he can't take it. His heart is going to give out, and this is it, _he's going to die –_

_Sarah I wish I could have fixed you_

Suddenly the pipe ends, white light explodes all around him and he is airborne, shooting outwards high across the vast tree canopy, the power of the blast sends him far, far out across the rippling sea. And as he flies, vertigo overcomes him in sick, black waves. And as he heads down, down into darkness and the ever increasing sea, Jack Shepard is scared. A full body mind and soul fear, as he comes up against the fact -

_If I fall wrong I'll break my neck clean in two_

- that he could die in these subsequent seconds. And his fleeting thoughts in those last moments find Sarah, back when things were still okay laughing and smiling up at him from his bed, his father, on the rare occasions he had actually quit with the bullshit enough to be a real father to him, and Kate –

_I'm sorry I kissed you_

Kate caught in a net, all breath and battle and heat and hair, Kate stitching his shoulder like she'd stitched her curtains, Kate crying with a toy plane and kissing him in so much pain –

_Kate I failed you_

And if he makes it out of this fall alive, if he can find his way back to her, he will find her. If he is given one more chance, _he will fix this. _

But the blackness enfolds him, and he is unconscious before his final impact with the water.

* * *

This can't be happening. This has to be some cruel joke – first he gets shot, now Kate! Looking down at her pale face, the fear lays its cold claim to Sawyers heart, the terrible fear that he will lose her – 

"Kate!" He calls, rubbing her face hard, trying to bring her round, "Kate, _come on now girl!"_

Her lashes flutter and she gasps in pain, grits her teeth wildly --

"Kate! You okay!"

She gives a stifled bellow of pain but he sees that strength in her face, and he suddenly wonders if this has happened to her before, on the run. Had anyone been there to look out for her? Probably not. Judging from the wildly defensive look in her, he guesses that was just the way she wishes it was right now.

"Its okay. Its just – _I just got tagged --"_

_"Tagged!"_ Sawyer scoffs near hysteria as the blood flows through her ripped shirt, "Kids play tag Kate, grown-ups get _shot!"_

"I rigged the detonator!" A shadow drops beside them – and Sawyer spins to find Garrett hastily ripping a piece of his lab coat. "I forced another expulsion of gas! It wont be nearly as strong, but --"

Sawyer watches in wild confusion – the clock on the wall is at the minute countdown again. Instead of turning tail and heading for the hills, the damn fool's trying to help! "What the hell are you still _here_ for?" He yells, his hold on his control slipping badly as the doors scream all around them under fire, "This is all goin' south g_et outta here!"_

"You _need_ my help," Garrett says breathlessly as he presses a wad of his lab coat tightly over the blood that oozes down Kate's side, lurid red in the light, "Find a way to fix this on her –" Garrett jumps up and tremblingly seals the main door. "This won't hold them long, but maybe it can buy us enough time to trip the system, force another outlet of gas, so we can follow them!"

"Why are you doing this?" Sawyer says furiously as Garrett jumps into a swivel chair before a massive computer panel – and one of the far doors in gantries above squeals in, giving up the ghost. Footsteps pound above them, coming down – Garrett gasps, and Sawyer wonders if the guy will freeze, give himself up –

But Garrett turns to them, determination shining in his eyes. "Get her in the airway chamber! _Hurry!"_

Gunfire rings out as Sawyer forces Kate to swing an arm around his shoulder. As he struggles with her towards the chamber, firing upwards wildly at those swooping black shadows that are circling round and down overhead, relentless and unstoppable, the acrid stench of gunpowder stings his eyes. But his focus is razor sharp, his aim definite – everything narrows right down amidst the madness. As bullets spark off metal around him in dazzling stars, his back finally crushes against the icy wall of the airlock -

"What are you doing!" Sawyer yells breathlessly to Garrett, _"Come on!"_

"The facility has a store of gas, used to fuel the electrics --" Garrett's words tumble out, face lit by computer screens, eyes glazed and manic, "If we can expunge that, we can completely cut the _power_ to this place, buy us some time to get away, so they can't read your minds and find where we are –"

"Damn it Garrett _get your ass over here!"_ Bullets ricochet near Sawyers face and he ducks – and as he pulls Kate into the airlock she goes down hard. As the roar of gas builds into a scream inthe central chamber behind them, Sawyer moves to lift her up --

10

A panel on the blast door into the main airway beeps and a green light splutters on. There is a deep gush of decompressionas Katepulls back, pushing Sawyer away violently. There's a fierce fire radiating from her, and Jesus Christ he can feel her pain, _it rips through his gut like a red hot knife --_

9

"_Don't help me,"_ She commands viciously, eyes all shining fury, "I can _do_ this - don't help me up, _don't you dare --" _

"_Give it up!" _He cries furiously, _"Jesus your side's blown open!"_

8,

"_I can do this --" _Kate insists wildly, hands groping blindly for a handhold on the wall,

"Let me help you --" He pleads,

"_NO!" _She cries, two massive tears dropping like hard diamonds down her cheeks –

7

Garrett types a sequence into the computer. It reads VIRUS UNLEASHED.

6

Footsteps pound ever closer and those black shadows finally swarm onto their floor - the hairs on Sawyers neck prickle in fear but his iron resolution never fails.

"Sorry Freckles – you wanna _hate_ me, knock yourself out – but I am gettin' _outta_ here and I ain't _leavin'_ without ya --"

5

Sawyer hits the entry button and drags Kate into the airlock –

4

As the door into the airway whines open, the gas storms about them, blasting them with the force of a hurricane of hammers --

3

The air is electrified, and Kate tears frantic looks about – Sawyer grabs her hand -

2

Garrett seals the airlock and dives into the airway – _Guards crash into the closed door furiously --_

1

Klaxons scream and the tidal wave of gas explodes beneath them, rocketing them upwards in a burst of black smoke.

* * *

With a terrific whine, all power in the basement dies. The fluorescents under the gantries blink out, all the computer systems all throughout the vast Staff research station go down, and emergency red hazard lights coat everything in a sick haze. In the subterranean vault, in the chaotic aftermath of the specimen's escape, Guards pick themselves up. Some are wounded by Sawyer's eerily accurate shots, some scratching their heads in anxious apprehension as they congregate around the now dark airway… 

Two figures part the crowd like butter. The guards shrink away from them fearfully, as the gas clears in the chamber to reveal it's vacant insides… and Henry Gale pounds to a halt, with Agent Blue by his side. Fear thuds like thunder overhead, mingling with the drone of machinery and the continual distant roar of the sea.

Agent Blue's startling white blue eyes fix on the tube… turns to Henry Gale… and Henry breaks out in a wide, hauntingly empty smile. The smile of a genius… or a madman.

"It's as we intended." His eyes dance, "The plan is going perfectly."

Agent Blue nods… but his grim eyes rove over the tube. "The sheer quantity of micro-transmitters in that gas… I hate to think what will happen to my specimens. The illusions they will see…"

"Everything is certainly going from bad to… oh, I'd say much worse for our fiery little friends." Henry smirks, and Agent Blue states unemotionally,

"The levels were too high, Sir. Possibly lethally high – and until we can regain emergency power to The Staff, we will not be able to control the impulses which the transmitters receive. Illusions will no longer be illusions. The could well go insane --"

Henry's smile drops like the carefully constructed façade it was, and he turns to Agent Blue slowly, scheming blue eyes slitted down tight…

"Did you forget what they did to me? How they tortured me, taunted me, _laughed at me?"_ Agent Blue only returns that poisonous gaze emptily, as Henry changes tact. His tone becomes grossly sympathetic, placating. "Agent Blue, this is _your_ baby. The Staff is _your_ design. You're Hanso's _top man_, I _get_ that your specimens are very important to you. _To the project…"_

And as Henry gets in real close, his smile widens. "And I suggest, if you wish this project to continue to run the way you want, you need to ask yourself one question. This is a matter of stark extremes, Agent. You're either with us… or your not. And if your not…" He leans in ever closer, whispers in the Agent's ear, "Remember what happened to Agent Red. A nasty, _nasty_ business… very upsetting."

He pulls back from Agent Blue sharply, eyes dancing, savouring this power rush, this complete dominance and Agent Blue only stares back coldly as Henry finishes,

"There's a storm coming. So I guess the real question is, Agent Blue… what side will you be on when the rain comes?"

* * *

The distant call of seagulls… 

Wind rustling through ocean grasses, the jungle fresh smells of damp earth… aware of the tang of saltwater coating his nasal passages and throat thickly…

Jack pivots forwards with a gasp as he vomits a stream of ocean water to the sludgy, hypnotic sand. Whilst he coughs his burning lungs up the sand shifts beneath him as the waves crash onto the beach all around him. It makes dazzling patterns, rainbow shapes…

The sun batters his back, and as his shivering subsides, he drags himself out of the surf and crawls up onto hot, white sand where he collapses heavily.

_Are my lungs clear I think they must be check for fractures and breaks –_

Suddenly fingers press against his wrist and he yells, jerking into consciousness and away from –

"Alex!" He coughs, jolted, _"Alex, are you alright…?"_

She stares down at him, eyes shining blue oceans of concern, and kneels by him in the sand. He stares at her in shock at her close proximity, his heart racing –

_What would she be like to fuck? _

Horrified, he looks at her. Dharma must be planting thoughts, that voice is as alien to him as is the notion of leaving two of his friend behind –

_Kate… Sawyer, where are you? What will they do to you?_

His eyes fill with such pain suddenly that Alex can't stand it. She wraps her arms around his soaking body, feels him tense up but hugs him tight. He doesn't return her embrace, only waits patiently for her to finish this display of emotion. "I'm fine." She whispers into his neck, pulling back and looking at the sky, and laughing wildly.

"I'm FINE! I made it…! I…" Her eyes meet Jack's, and she can see he is watching her quizzically. She scoops a handful of sand, lets the grains run through her fingers… then her eyes return to his. "_We_ made it. We did it…!"

Finally Jack breaks into a half hearted smile…

… as thunder cracks across the clear blue sky. And out of nowhere, in moments white clouds have locked overhead…

Their smiles fall. They look into the jungle as an almighty explosion reverberates through the air –

As they dive into the sand, there is a violet flash of light and an intense rush of air, like an electromagnetic storm has just blasted past them. And faraway, what could be from as faraway as the other side of the island, three distant splashes ring out…

Warily, Jack sits, his senses jangling on red alert… and he removes his protective arm from Alex's back quickly. Her wide eyes find his… and he realizes that for all her gunplay and tough talk, this is a child. A damaged, possibly emotionally stunted teenager, but a child nonetheless… and his natural instincts rise, he is thankful they are still there, and he wants to protect her… _fix her._

"What _was_ that…!" She breathes, and he stares at her, at a loss… when the heavens open and a veritable blanket of rain falls. He holds her stare through it, as it hisses on the hot sand and kicks bullets out of the surf…

"I don't know. But I don't like it." His resolution is seeping back now, his determination t get a handle on these crazed events reborn, and he nods definitely. _Focuses. _"Come on. We have to figure out where we are."

* * *

As they hurtle up, as they pass the different levels in the glass tube they see the electricity failing all around them, the blackness chasing upwards behind them. Sawyer clenches Kate's hand tight – and with a terrific crack they are suddenly soaring through the thundery sky, through pounding rain, careening through the air with a stomach churning velocity – 

Crashing into the water he delves deep into the murky depths --

Her hand is wrenched from his and as he fights against the undercurrent, he sees the daylight dazzling up on the surface –

Breaking the surface, he tears great gasps of air through the rain, convulsing with the relief, with the _freedom_ – his head hurts like a bastard, his right hand and leg are strangely numb, andits hard to stay afloat – but suddenly he tears frantic looks about him.

"_Kate! Garrett –" _The sea's spinning sickeningly, just rolling, swellingwaves and low grey sky in every which direction, _"KATE!"_

A crash of water next to him and Garrett bursts through the surface, bobbing about wildly. He gasps crazily, hair plastered to his face, and his glasses have been swallowed by the soup - but Sawyer grips him, dragging him up with his good hand. The rain hits the water so hard it makes loud popping sounds and it stings his skin - but laughter rips from Sawyer. _"Hey Superman!_ You okay!"

"I'm – I'm good." Garrett chokes with a hysterical rise in his voice_, "You!"_

"Right leg and hand --can't feel 'em –" Sawyer puffs in exhaustion, treading water as his eyes travel over Garrett's shuddering shoulder… and as the remains of his sentence die in his throat, the electrode in his head begins shivering, heating up…

_Remember how your momma looked dead in the hall James? Remember her empty face staring back at you?_

Water sloshes at him, he chokes on it – as his gaze rests on a bundle of rags, bobbing twenty feet away. No_. God, please no –_

_Remember that look in her face? Not restful or peaceful Jimmy, but full of AGONY –_

Overcome he loses control, battles his way through the rolling waves, Garrett's fearful cries ringing in his ears, "Sawyer! _Sawyer HEY!"_

Holy shit, her green tee shirt _– a matt of black hair swirling in the water –!_

"_Kate!"_ He tries to yell, but the water and the rain, he's drowning on all sides and he's so fucking tired, so tired _and why can't he feel his leg and hand!_ "Kate --" He whispers through the water, _"Ah, Kate please…"_

Tackling that bundle of rags, he feels the weight of her body, heaves her high with his good arm – getting a lungful of shitty seawater, he pulls her close, wipes the hair from her face – her pale face –

Her eyes are clenched shut, and she's so damn white he's terrified she's lost every damn ounce of blood from her body. She has a nasty scrape on the side of her face, much like when he'd first met her, and his heart bucks like a dying mule in his aching chest –

She's slipping under. He can't stay afloat with both their weight and she's slipping _and_ _he can't HOLD her –_

"Freckles I'm sorry --" As the waves rise around them, he presses his cold face to hers, the press of her freezing forehead to his chilling him deeper than the cold sea ever could, "I'm so sorry Freckles…"

Suddenly Kate is heaved up from his grasp, and Sawyer's eyes flare open in shock – Garrett has his arms around Kate's middle, and through the rolling waves Sawyer can see him struggle with her weight. _"Sawyer! Don't go under! Stay -- AWAKE!"_

Sawyer nods, desperately fighting to stay afloat, and his electrode is burning, and Jesus he can hear Dharma in his _mind_, taunting and reasoning –!

_Be kind to yourself, go under and save yourself the pain of seeing Kate's dead face, the disgrace of failing her, the agony of burying her. Just let the air out of your lungs and go down. It could all be over in moments James. _

"Sawyer!" Garrett cries over the gale, "Sawyer she's still alive!"

He looks to Garrett in utter disbelief and _if that lousy bastard is lyin' –_

But Garrett looks earnest, drenched and battered by the waves but earnest! "She's got a pulse! I can feel it!"

Cramps of sick relief pour through him, and it galvanizes him - not much… but maybe enough to get through this. He manages to pull himself above the water, and Garrett is gazing at him through the blinding rain, whipping down like heavens own lashes, "Can you make it? _Sawyer can you make it to shore?"_

And as Sawyer looks to Garrett -

_Duckett!_

- through the stinging rain, Duckett is treading water heavily before him, it is Duckett with his damn staring icy eyes and whispery breath, rolling on the waves, choking in the rain.

"_I can do it," _Sawyer calls hoarsely, _"I'm coming."_

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	14. The hardest part

_To everyone out there who is a little surprised at another 'new' chapter 14,** this is the new chapter - **But I condensed chapters 1 and 2 into the same chapter (1) for better, faster reading. So if your also reading this over at the Kate Sawyer diaries, this is the Chapter 15 that is posted over there. _

_So this IS a new chapter! _**_Thanks to all the amazing reviewers who have been so kind as to support me with their time and excitement! This is all for you guys :) _**

_**Enjoy!**_

* * *

**Chapter 14 **

**The Hardest Part **

When Sawyer is finally hurled onto the beach, he grips his way through the sludgy sand and the vicious surf, choking and shivering in the torrential rainfall. Same damn sand, same jungle, same _damn island – _

Sleep and unconsciousness bribe him to dive right on in, but as he heaves himself out of the surf he looks up the beach to see Garrett kneeling over Kate, and doggedly he starts to crawl – then bellows in pain, gripping his leg – then shrieks again, as he remembers his stupid hand is busted too. He remembers hitting the water with an almighty crack on his side, like the mother of all belly flops, and he hasn't been the same since –

_What if it's broken? Doctor Quinn ain't gonna help you now – _

This is torture. Looking up the beach to where Kate lies motionless as Garrett pounds on her chest – and he can't move, _can't_ _reach_ _her_, it tears him up inside –

"Garrett!" He cries desperately over the howl of the wind and rain, _"Garrett is she okay!" _

Suddenly Kate pivots forwards and he can hear her yell over nature's damn ruckus. He stares at her in sick relief, wilts with it… and then the voices return, won't even let him have this moment of ecstasy. Asking why he is so protective over her when he knows its Jack she wants, when she has made it so blindingly clear –

_You never change _

-- that she can barely stand him. Why does he keep doing this to himself? It's like this lousy silver ocean just battering itself to nothing on the rocks – violent and completely unstoppable.

He looks up the beach as she hugs Garrett, and knows a way to stop it. Before he falls too deep that he can't get up. What was that sayin' his momma always preached at him? Trip over love, and you can get up. Fall over love, you fall forever…

Sawyer ain't never been in love, and _don't_ plan on starting now. 'Caus if he falls any further, he knows he'll never recover. And looking up the beach through the blinding rain, as Kate coughs heavily and Garrett wraps a protective arm around her shoulders, Sawyer knows what he has to do.

* * *

Kate woozily finds Sawyer sheltering beneath some palm trees from the rain, which trickles in pearls from the fronds all above them. Her heart kicks protectively when she sees him - he looks like he has been in a war zone. He has a clump of his shirt binding his hand up tightly, and is busy strapping his leg to a makeshift splint. He ignores her, which after everything, is almost more than she can stand. 

She lowers herself painfully to sit beside him, and shivers. "Thank you."

He doesn't look at her. "What for?"

"For helping me."

He gives disgusted snort, concentrating hard on lashing his leg tighter, _tighter_.

"I didn't _help_ you."

She wrinkles her nose in confusion, green eyes flashing, "You pulled me out of the _ocean_ Sawyer, that's pretty helpful in my book –"

"I didn't _save_ you Kate." He spits suddenly, and she knows with a terrible sinking feeling what this is all about. She knows him well enough to know that his pride may have been dealt a mortal wound out there in the water, and he won't meet her eyes. Vehemently he hisses_, "He did." _

Kate follows Sawyers rough gesture down the shoreline, through the drifting rain and mist, to where Garrett chases his shoes along the surf. Sawyer follows her gaze, then looks away with a resigned expression of disgust which she has seen many times.

_Don't you feel sorry for me – _

"I don't save people Kate…" He sounds like he is talking from a great distance, like there is an impossible gulf which has opened between them somehow. "It's not in my nature."

She watches him uneasily… then follows his gaze to stare out at the ocean. Garrett finally catches his loafer, and waves it up at them with a goofy great grin plastered on his flushed face. Kate smiles weakly back… then drops her gaze, studies her toes. Trying to find the words to express her complete disagreement with his cynical view of himself, trying to say so many things… but she is hopeless with words, emotionally inept with them, and it takes everything she has to murmur to him as she gazes out at the ocean,

"You didn't fail me out there, you know." Even that feels like it could never be enough, like so much will always remain left unsaid.

He is silent, unmoved by her… and she wonders if she really is fighting a losing battle with him, if things can ever be different between them – if he'll ever get over this massive chip on his shoulder… whereas once she thought he had a chance, now that chance is thrown into question. She has opened a tiny part of herself to him in that comment, in that acknowledgement that he may have feelings for her… and if he doesn't reciprocate, she will not do it again. He is too proud - and she loves him and hates him for it suddenly.

* * *

He realized, within moments out of the water that he wouldn't make it far. Running was out of the question. It had taken everything he had to crawl beneath these palms without screaming in pain, to force it down. And the same thought was running through his mind now as it had done then, endlessly scurrying through his mind like a rat in Dharma's endless maze, 

_You'll slow them down and when they find out they'll leave you behind _

Garrett comes up and flops beneath the palms next to them, breath tearing in and out.

"Jeez, my first glimpse out of the Staff in twelve years and its raining! Can't get away from the water…!" He chortles.

"Come on," Kate says, trying to focus on the plan through her haze of pain throbbing from her side, and pulling herself up, "We have to keep moving --"

"You figure?" Sawyer growls, and she looks to him incredulously.

"Is there any question here! We have to get back to our beach, tell everyone what's happening here – and they'll be after us, we have to get out of here!"

_You'll slow them down! MAKE THEM LEAVE YOU BEHIND – _

"You wanna run Kate?" Sawyer suddenly flashes, "Fine. Run. Get the hell out of here. _Go on, run!" _He drops his voice miserably to deliver the killer, "It's what your best at."

She narrows her eyes at him, trying to hide how much his words actually hurt her.

"That's low… even for you." She advances on him, gripping her side. "In case you forgot Sawyer, these implants won't stay docile forever – we have _two_ days to figure out how we're gonna _deal_ with this, how we're going to get them _out_ –"

"Kate, denial ain't just a river in Egypt!" He cries, "These things _ain't_ _coming_ _out! _What, you're gonna perform keyhole surgery with a swordfish and some coconuts!"

"Get _up_." She grits furiously,

"-- Or maybe a few mangoes," He continues, and he won't let this go, "Hell, I'm sure I could rustle me up a pretty damn convincing _operating theatre_ out of those logs and a couple a sticks a _bamboo_ --"

"Shut up and _get on your feet!" _

"Go to hell," He scowls, "I don't take orders from you."

"Sawyer _get_ _up_ or we'll _leave_ you here --"

* * *

Her words actually sting. It's the reaction he _wanted_, its what he _wanted_ to hear – but the reality of her words hanging in the air over their heads amongst the rain and wind, _the reality of it, _something hurts somewhere inside, somewhere private and painful. 

"Oh yeah, that's you all over, ain't it?" He chokes suddenly, "You need me in the _dark_, in the _cell,_ when we're locked up and there ain't no'one else, and you're scared, and you think you're goin' _crazy_, oh you need me _then_ – "

Suddenly this isn't an argument about hiking through the jungle anymore. No, his blood pounds nastily and his head aches – this is something deeper now. And he suddenly realizes, he'd been right not to open up to her. Right to shut her out of his heart and soul and brand her the same as all the other women who he'd hurt, who had hurt him. Because she _will _leave him here, she will run, it's in her blood, her nature, just as --

_You don't help people Sawyer. It's not in your nature _

-- it is in his nature to lie barefaced to the ones he loves, push them away so hard they'd never make the same mistake of coming back. Just as it is in his nature to --

_You kill people Sawyer _

- drag people down, hold people back. Well if Garrett is his chance to change, maybe he _has_ to stay behind. Let Garrett and Kate get to safety… because he won't be responsible for slowing them down. No siree. You love something, you set it free, that was another of his ma's pearls of wisdom. Damn her, her advice always was a heartbreaker.

"Honey, I might never change but you're goddamn _timeless!"_ His voice gets strangled with fury, "'Caus as soon as we're out and you see the open road, your blood heats, you get scared, and you cut and run.

And Kate is looking at him with a look of hurt that damn near shreds his heart. He knows how much this is hurting her, but he can't stop himself. Better for her to hate him than for him to wind up killing her. _"You'll leave me behind…" _He mimics finally, "And you call _me_ unbelievable…"

She shakes her head, lost for words, and turns and walks up the beach. She sits by the surf in the drifting rain, grey fog rolling from the sea nearly engulfing her. As he watches her fade in and out, a grey smear through the mist, he waits for her to make her decision. Garrett sits beside him all the while, shivering in the mist.

"So," He tries at light conversation, "You two… you an item or what?"

Sawyer shoots him a look full of as much scorn as he can muster. "We were an item my lil' capodre, we'd be a damn nuke. Wipe out ourselves and everybody around us." He shakes his head, "I need that like I need a hole in the head."

"She's certainly driven…" Garrett says in admiration.

"You don't know the half of it." Sawyer grunts, as Kate trudges up through the sand and looks down at him. He is certain then that there is a flash of hatred in her eyes when she says,

"We're not leaving you behind. We'll stay here tonight."

"Oh no," Garrett says suddenly, wiping rain from his face "We don't have to stay out here." Both Kate and Sawyer look to him quizzically, "I know where we are," He explains as though it was obvious, but then he grows serious. "I know where we can go. I know how I can get you guys away from here."

* * *

The world is made up of mud and stinging rain, the trek in the direction Jack hoped was towards their beach absolutely fruitless. If possible, they are maybe even more lost than before. He simply doesn't recognize anything – and Christ _it's getting dark_ – 

His chest is tight as a drum, ears ringing and all his extremities throb with the cold. This isn't like a tropical storm, it's like someone has flipped the _thermostat_ off, it's _freezing_ –

_What if we did this? When we blew the power to The Staff, what if this is our fault! _

And the transmitter throbs like an infested sore, it aches it's blackness deeper and deeper into his mind, he can feel it, and it terrifies him – before he knows it, he is running, running fast in fear, heart stabbing in protest, trying to outrun the fear, if he can run fast enough maybe he can lose it –

And when he goes down, he is completely thrown from his feet. As he lies there soaking in the mud, winded and hitching for breath, he feels hands reaching down, like the implant's icy tendrils through his mind _have taken on a life of their own – _

_"Get your hands off me!" _He bellows furiously, shoving hard and sending his assailant pinwheeling backwards. As he reels around, he watches Alex go down, and the voices scream

_Do it! Jump on her, strangle her – _

But as the rain runs down his face, dances on his lashes, he fights to regain control of his mind – and focusing through the rain and mist, his stomach lurches miserably as he realizes he lost control, he could have hurt her…

Cowed, Alex stares back with wide eyes full of hurt. Close, Jack feels his body crackling under her stare, feels those wide blue eyes sending knives of heat through his cold body. And he feels his control slipping as he realizes Alex's vest is turning transparent in the rain…

She leans in… those sapphire eyes framed with darkest lashes and beads of rain flutter against her cheeks, he feels her warm breath on his face… he closes his eyes…

He sees himself kissing her suddenly, wrenching her into the mud and dirtying up that black hair, seeing those eyes sparkle beneath him _and pop open wide when he thrusts inside her – _

But nothing comes. Her breath lingers on his face, and shocked, he opens his eyes. The thoughts Dharma are implanting are getting stronger, so strong that his groin burns for her still, and he hates it –

"What?" He pants, as he opens his eyes to find her staring over his shoulder, riveted, _"What is it?"_

"Oh my God…" She breathes, _"Look…"_

Jack turns dazedly, and his eyes widen.

In the clearing behind them, the remains of the Black Rock spike through the rolling rain clouds. It's remaining masts punch high into the grey mists, it's rotting black wood stark against the opaque world surrounding it.

* * *

"How?" Kate's eyes burn into Garrett as she drops to the soaking sand next to him, "How can we escape?" 

"There's a bunker not far from here." Garrett explains, "It's called 'The Door' –"

"You couldn't a mentioned this fact a little sooner!" Sawyer says tiredly.

"We could make it there before nightfall." His eyes grow serious, "I… I really _think it's best we do."_

"There ain't nobody following us," Sawyer sighs tiredly, "Jesus, can we cool this down --?"

_"Two massive deposits of gas were expunged today._ The amount of micro-transmitters in the air will be very high – we need to reach a sanitary environment. We mustn't stay in the open --"

"What'll happen if we do?" Kate says, suddenly afraid, "There's a whole group of us on the other side of the island, there's elderly people, a newborn _baby_ - if there's a danger, we have to reach them tonight, tell them --"

"It won't affect them," Garrett says, but he averts his eyes suddenly. "It's you two that will really feel it. The monitors at The Staff will all have gone down when we cut their power. So you're right," He says to Sawyer, "They won't follow straight away." But then he turns to Kate, worriedly. "But it means there's nobody regulating the electromagnetic impulses into your transmitters, nobody controlling the islands… forces."

"Regulate the what with a who!" Sawyer says in complete confusion.

"Trust me on this," Garrett says pleadingly, "I helped you this far right? You have to believe me. You don't wanna be out here in the dark, that's when --"

He bites his tounge and Sawyer looks to Kate – she pins Garrett with a hard stare,

"That's when _what?"_ Garrett shifts uneasily, and neither like the look of fear which is back in him again. "Garrett," Kate leans forwards worriedly, "What happens in the dark?"

Garrett meets her eyes unwillingly, as those whatever he is so scared of will rise out of the jungle and devour him…_ "That's_ _when_ _they_ _come_."

* * *

"Come on," Alex helps Jack to his feet and this time he doesn't resist, he is just fixated on how they have found the Black Rose… and as he comes back to himself, he finds Alex is leading him towards it, through the battering rain and slick grasses. 

"I don't think so!" He pulls his hand from her and rivets to the spot outside the gaping hole into the now maggot eaten cargo bay. Alex stares at him from inside, innocent eyes cast open wide.

"Why not! It's cold and soaking out there, come inside!" She smiles, eyes dancing as she does a little pirouette, "Come on, why not -- it's dry…!"

"Why not!" Jack repeats incredulously, "Because there's enough neat explosives stowed right behind you to blast us right off this mortal coil Alex, that's why!"

She shrugs disinterestedly and he knows with a rush of irritation that he won't win this one. She's sick of running in the rain and never getting anywhere. Come to think of it, so is he…

"The rain's made everything all damp." She says, "I'm sure it's safe."

Rolling his eyes he resists a little longer, hating the idea of entering this rotting, mysterious ship again. Maybe it's the fact that he can't explain how a pirate ship which looks about 200 years old wound up in the middle of the jungle. Mentally bracing himself, he bows his head and steps inside after her…

* * *

The trek towards 'The Door' is one of the hardest walks Sawyer has ever taken. He believed up until this point that walking across mystery island with a rotting hole in his shoulder was the pits, but hell, _this_ is another ballgame. Not only did he have that lovely fire burning in his shoulder for old times sake, he had the _added_ bonus of trying to use branch/ crutches with a busted hand. And when they reach the base of a mountainside and Garrett leads them up the rock face, Sawyer doesn't complain. He holds it in, even though 

_Jump! Go on, your above the roof canopy now on a slippery mountaintop, it'd be so easy! Just one wrong STEP --_

But he doesn't think of it. The physical pain isn't the hardest part, and neither are the voices. Hell, he's gotten almost used to the slimy feel of those alien thoughts pouring through his mind like oil. But as he watches Kate refusing support from Garrett, drenched Ms Amazonian Goddess herself is _still_ playing the game. Yeah, she hadn't left him behind, so maybe it wasn't so crazy to believe she actually gave a damn whether he died or not… but she still had to prove her damn points, that she could walk with a chunk out her side, hike, track.

So the hardest part is that he was wrong. She _is_ changing, by degrees and fractions so tiny that someone who doesn't know Kate better may not notice it at all, but _he_ sees it, and he _notices_. And if she is changing, maybe she will expect _him_ to change too…

As he looks up front, to where the others have stopped, he knows he's got a hell of a long road ahead before he can ever relate to Kate the way he wants to. The way he has never been able to with _anyone_. He always believed it was something he lacked inherently, the knowledge of how to _connect_ with people. But he feels it now, as he staggers determinedly towards them, that there may be a _chance_ to connect with her. He felt it when he held her as she cried over Libby and Ana-Lucia, he feels it again now and the voices can't take it away, although they do their damndest to try.

* * *

Alex lies on the only functional bunk bed. Most of the others have mouldered away into nothingness, and her gaze travels down to find Jack lying politely on the floor, fast asleep, and shivering. Wordlessly she climbs down and lies next to him for warmth, pulling their only damp blanket up higher around them. 

As Sawyer finally heaves to a shattered, soaking stop besides Kate and Garrett, his thoughts briefly linger with Jack and Alex, wondering if they are safe, if they will ever find them. Then he turns to Garrett and Kate standing before a heavy red metal hatch which glows in the side of the mountainside, and they look out over the wet tree canopy, towards the glittering sea and the stormy horizon. A vague rainbow filters through the grey dusky sky… and Sawyer realizes something. Something so fucking _simple_ that it hits him right between the eyes.

Maybe Garrett is his chance to change… but maybe Kate is the _reason_, the gold at the end of his own fucked up, happy crappy little rainbow if he does.

He likes the idea of that.

And he finally joins them, looks out with them in pain and mourning in his private way for Jack and Alex, but strangely complete in the falling light.

* * *

In the darkness, Jack stares down at Alex intently with a look of complete detatchment on his face. 

_get her get her GET HER GET HER! _

And as he looks down, his eyes fill with certainty... and he smiles down at thestick of dynamite in his hands.

* * *

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	15. Houses built on sand

**Chapter 15**

**Houses built on sand**

Kate lies awake on her bunk, gazing out the blast window opposite at the dawning view of the island. She doesn't know how things have come this far, how in the space of a week, everything has uprooted again, her fragile sense of home and peace shattered.

Drilled high into the mountainside, The Door is a hatch similar in design to The Swan, in parts so similar that she keeps expecting to hear scratchy LP's playing and Hurley and Charlie doing a little dance, to turn a corner and find Locke entering the numbers, or Jack and Sayid having one of their deep and meaningfuls. The loneliness here is total and all encompassing in the dark hours of the night, and she finds her thoughts with the others, an unknown world away. Is Aaron still keeping Claire up or is he sleeping through the night yet? Is Sun still quiet, is Jin still worried about her?

Getting up here had nearly killed her. Although they had found a stack of medication in a refrigerator in the kitchen and she had dosed herself up high, her side still throbs. And it is not just her side keeping her from much needed sleep.

The implant is beginning to burrow. She can feel it, through the permanent headache she has of late. It terrifies her on a primal level, because those voices rake up her past and force her to relive the guilt, the pain. Wayne, her mother, all the pain she caused –

She looks out the window biting her lips into a colourless line. Her eyes rest on the campfire out there, sheltered out of the rain by the alcove of overhanging rock. The fire dances off a head of gold, and her heart pounds with that lust, as the voices rise,

_Go out there and do it. Kiss him, rake your hands through his hair, tear his clothes off, feel his body beneath yours, it's the only thing that will make you forget, he'll take the pain away – _

But she knows it's the voices, the foul voices of Dharma going overtime, and so she clenches down the fire in her stomach and she swears to herself she doesn't want him, good girls don't want to do the things that she wants to do to him. Men always came and went, and Kate used them for her means, and as she smiled at their jokes, played them at their games, slept in their beds she locked herself in her blue room and hid as she turned into the woman she is today – a woman crippled by guilt and grief, a dangerous combination, a woman who has made an art form out of lying – and a woman she despises.

But as the men came and went like buses, she found two certainly did arrive at once. Two polar opposites yet split sides of the same coin, light and dark. One good and decent, one immoral and damaged. One a born leader, strong, with a logical mind and a precious moral compass to guide her to the straight and narrow, a just man who is respectable and virtuous, everything she places value in, everything worthy in this world… and Jack is everything she aspires to be.

_Jack I need you _

And the other is everything base and primal, all animal urges and irrationalities, in turn intense and passionate, then thick headed and bullish, charming yet utterly abhorrent, he is a defensive loner raw with terrible bouts of self-loathing that will never be satisfied… and Sawyer is everything she may be in essence, but has always denied.

_Denial ain't just a river in Egypt _

It scares her. Because whatever scraps of pain and grief that their innermost souls are made of, his and hers are the same. And no matter how she resists, it never changes; like her fate, he seems inescapable – he draws her to him like a moth to a flame. And she is terrified if she looks too closely into those wounded eyes, she will see her own pain and self-loathing shining right back at her.

* * *

When Jack was sixteen, he dragged his father out of a bar at two in the morning. His mother had been going out of her mind with worry, spinning stories of Christian's destruction at the hands of thugs, maybe he'd been knifed, shot even, or he may have staggered into the road and been mowed down, or gotten himself lost –

So it had been down to the teenage Jack, even then, to hold his fractured family together, to go out and find his wayward father, and keep up appearances. He hadn't done it for his mother, for all her hyperventilating and bluster, or even for his father, to make certain he had indeed not befallen any of the fates his mother had predicted. He had found him and dragged him home because he needed to restore a balance. He needed his father home, if only to keep his sense of order straight – because after all, if there was no logic and order to the world, everything was thrown into question. And even at that young age, as he slung his fathers broad arm about his weedy shoulders and dragged his dead weight on the long road home, he knew life without a balance was like a house built on sand. It couldn't stand.

It is the moment which he realized this that Jack comes back to now. It seems like a lifetime ago. Because even though things were hard back then, things had been black and white, _clear_, there had been logic. His father drank himself unconscious to get away from his problems, to get away from his mother and the heavy responsibilities of being Chief of Surgery at one of the most respected hospitals in the country. Jack could _understand_ that, the pressure, the fear of being unable to live up to peoples expectations when peoples lives were at stake beneath their scalpels. He didn't agree with his fathers methods, but he could understand them because there was _logic_ there.

Now, he is lost. The foundations of that house built on sand are eroding, washing away with the tide. There is no logic here, in the bowels of this rotting ship which creaks around him in the continuing rain and storm. There is no reasoning with powers he cannot understand, no way of fighting against thoughts being forced into his mind. He doesn't even know which are his own anymore.

Everything is mixed up now. Nothing is black and white anymore.

As the storm wails around him like a hurt and crying child, Jack is losing his mind.

_Kate and Sawyer are probably already dead. _

He can't stand himself. How could he have left them behind, when Kate was in such a bad way? He'll never forgive himself. Her face haunts him, her scream and the gunshots, and that last look between him and Sawyer

_Don't go _

He clenches his jaw in despair. Alex sleeps soundly in his arms, and the dynamite is warmed through from his hands.

_Light it Jack _

He stares at it horror.

_It's the only way to end this. You'll never leave this island, and if you think this is bad, you're in for a whole new education of the word. _

He reaches inside his pockets to find a box of matches. He doesn't know how they got there, can't remember ever owning them. But somehow it doesn't surprise him anymore. There is no logic in the world, now. Everything is a question with no answers in sight.

He stares at the dynamite for a long, long time.

* * *

The heat of the campfire doesn't touch Sawyer. Ever since this storm blew in from nowhere, he's been freezing. And so hours after they'd made it up the mountainside and him and Kate had chased pills together, he'd started this fire. Garrett refused to leave him out here alone, absolutely adamant that to be out here past nightfall was bad, that something terrible would happen, but Sawyer never believed any of that hokey-pokey superstitious crap. Or so he told himself….

"We shouldn't be out here," Garrett says for the damn hundredth time, "This is a really, really bad idea…"

"You have any good ones right now?" Sawyer says jadedly over the continual hiss of the rain. Garrett is silent. "Go on inside, get some sleep. If any damn polar bears come flying by, I'll be sure to give 'em a friendly heads up." He taps the Beretta with a flash of a tired smile.

"What is it with you and polar bears?" Garrett yawns.

"Never liked the bastards." Sawyer sighs. There is something he wants to ask, has always needed to know, but is unsure whether he is going to like the answer. The fact that Sawyer sees Duckett in the man both literally and mentally scares the crap out of him, and Lord, he needs some answers. Finally, he fixes his eyes on the fire and says,

"Why are you really here, Garrett?" Garrett looks to him questioningly, and Sawyer elaborates, "I got my idea's. But I can't understand, why you came with us so far. That wasn't the plan. You were just s'posed to get us out. That's all I wanted." He sneaks a look at the battered scientist in the firelight. "But you're here like you got something to prove_. Like you got a reason in all this." _

Garrett seems to wilt, like he has been found out somehow. He stokes the fire with a stick thoughtfully, trying to find words to explain…

"I think there's things you should know about Dharma, Sawyer." He speaks as though finding this very hard, "Degroot/Hanso were working on a gas which controls the mind. It has microscopic transmitters in which are 100 time more powerful than the one in your head. Inhaled, it forces its way into the bloodstream, and once there the foreign bodies work their way up to the brain… where they attach themselves to the cortex, and transmit code to machines, which translate that code into _language_… so whatever you're thinking, they will know."

Sawyer stares at him uneasily as Garrett shifts, "The gas worked too well. There was an outbreak in the 90's and many of the key members of the organisation were infected. The gas was so powerful, in days it had driven them crazy, pumped full of delusional, paranoid thoughts. There was chaos, a bloodbath. The infected turned on the pure, killing…"

His face hardens. "That's when Sergeant Gale was deployed with his Agents. They took over the running of The Staff and killed the infected scientists who were holding us prisoners. From one set of captors to another, huh…? And by then we'd lost control of the machines, and the island was contaminated by the gas. The remaining crew were forced to lock down the hatches, and take to the underwater reactor, until a time would come where the air was clear enough to go top side again.

"But the gas keeps being made. Every 108 minutes, it's pumped into the atmosphere. I don't know how, but I've tried to find where the gas is released from, but I can't its not here."

"It's us," Sawyer says softly, "We were releasing it. There's a button, in our hatch. Every 108 minutes, we push it."

Garrett nods, taking this in. "That makes sense. Every hatch has a purpose."

Sawyer nods, eyes burning into him. "So what's _your_ purpose Garrett…?"

Garrett looks away, suddenly blinking back tears. "Donum Homanus Agnosco Re vera Mentis Abutor. You know what that means?"

Sawyer is thrown. Hopefully he offers, "Taco Bell this way?"

"The Gift of Human Understanding - Fulfilling the Human Mind." Garrett says through a dry mouth. "_Abutor _can also be translated as abusing, you know. Abusing the human mind. Donum Homanus Agnosco Re vera Mentis Abutor… _Dharma." _

Sawyer's eyes widen in surprise, as Garrett clenches his fists furiously. "So you want to know why I came, right? I believe you asked me. I came, because I don't want to be a part of it anymore."

"Okay," Sawyer regrets pushing for answers, "Alright, take it easy --"

But it seems like now Garrett has finally opened the floodgates after so many years, he can't close them again. "Take it easy! You still don't _understand --" _

Garrett's eyes shine in the night as the rain pounds down, and he says in a strained voice, "My mother was head of the Parapsychology Division at The Staff. She was an Agent, one of the only good ones who was there from the start, who remembered what it was that we'd set out to achieve _- a greater understanding of the human condition._ But everything got warped somehow --"

"What happened to her?" Sawyer says, feeling his stomach clench. This is too close to home… "Garrett, _what'd they do to her…?" _

The scientist shivers in the cold, face crumpling with repressed sorrow. "She refused to take part in physical experimentation on human life. Threatened to blow the whistle on this entire sick operation… so they shot her. In front of her entire unit." Garrett's eyes widen as his throat locks… "In front of me."

Sawyer can barely breathe. It's like his heart is straining to beat through slowly drying concrete.

_You'd know all about that now wouldn't you James? _Those hateful voices chirp merrily, _Oh you know all about seeing your mother shot in front of your eyes don't you? _

* * *

When James was six, his Aunt Betty said he was strong as an ox for his age. He'd always worn that compliment like a golden medal, like his strength made him special. His momma always said he had to learn to fight with his tongue and not his fists – but even then, little James didn't have the patience for that. He's never needed much of a reason to react harshly in a situation - any reason to join a brawl is good enough for him. He lives in his body instead of his head; it's always been the way.

When James was six he was strong.

But Aunt Betty was wrong. Because when little Jimmy lay under the bed, just before midnight on March 15th 1976, the smell of gunpowder stinging his nose and the roar of two shots still ringing in his ears, he is not strong. That medal tarnishes to brass and over the years dissolves to nothing, all on account of that night. The bed creaks above his head and the mattress curves down under the weight of a body_, under the weight of his daddy – _

But little Jimmy can't move. Little Jimmy is frozen tight, can only stare at those swinging cowboy boots. Even today, every stitch and pockmark in their battered soles is burned into his memory.

The only reason Jimmy pulls himself out of the bed at all is because he's always been scared of what's under there, that there could be a monster down there waiting to gobble him whole. He doesn't mean to look at the bed. He doesn't mean to see what he did, and ever since he wishes he could take that glance back.

His daddy's head is nearly hidden by Jimmy's Transformer's bedsheets, those were his favorite, his daddy bought them for his birthday and his favourite was Megatron. They are all red. There is red on the walls and red on the floor. Megatron is all bloody. It's only in his later years that James realizes it was a shotgun lying on the bed, and he knows why he couldn't see his daddy's head that night.

_"Momma momma Daddy's asleepin' on my bed!" _He wails, bare feet pattering through the red into the hall –

And in the guttering hall, Jimmy sees his momma.

* * *

Garrett stares outwards into the onslaught of rain, trembling as the sun tints the eastern sky a gunmetal grey. "When they find out what I did, they'll do the same to me. When they find me. _When they find out I helped you --" _

Sawyer's good hand claps his shoulder through the golden light, through the storm and cold… and Garrett returns his look in surprise at Sawyer's gesture.

"Ain't nobody puttin' a bullet in you, brother." Sawyer growls, and he has to struggle to get his own words past the stinging sorrow in his throat, as Sawyer swears to himself that crazy night that he will never see anybody die again, not like that, "You can count on that."

He will protect them. All of them goddamn it, broken leg and hand or not. And as the wind picks up his implants burns, the voices stabbing at him,

_You can't protect them little Jimmy. YOU'RE the monster under the bed, you turned into what you were so scared of when you were six. _

_Monsters don't save people Jimmy… _

_…and monsters don't get saved. _

He is the man parents fear their kids will grow up like, that fathers warn their daughters about, he is a monster, he knows it and he accepts it, but Lord in Heaven, that don't mean he can't try. It don't mean he can't try and put things right.

* * *

When Kate joins him later, Garrett goes inside to get some rest. It's like they're taking damn shifts babysitting him and he doesn't like it. He never asked them to.

But when Kate lowers herself with a soft sigh of pain next to him, he relaxes somehow. All those crazed thoughts, all Dharma's vicious voices, they all recede.

He looks to her questioningly. He's gotten pretty good at guessing when she's got something on her mind.

"You think… you think we'd feel something if…" She tries harder, "You think if something happened to Jack… that we'd feel it?"

He stares at her through the dwindling fire, trying not to shiver. The sun is dawning high and washing everything in pale, washed out mists through the continuing rain.

"I don't know…" He says, wishing he could offer more, feeling inept because he can't. After awhile, he sighs. "Don't you think you should try and sleep? Your side ain't gonna heal with you hopping about."

She gives him a soft smile, looking into the fire. "Can't sleep. I'm never good in beds I don't know. Takes me awhile to get used to them."

"What, you gotta monster under there?" He says softly, and she detects something in his voice, that there's something else he's getting at. He marvels at how she does that.

"It's the sheets." She sighs, "Always the sheets. Too scratchy, too heavy, too thin." She looks out to the rain, and he sees her fully for the first time, silhouetted against the misty mountains and tree canopy, every curl in her hair and freckle on her upturned face, the line of her jaw and the curve of her breasts. In the dawn, she is everything beautiful he has ever seen in this world.

He watches her nose wrinkle, as an exhausted smile ghosts her lips. "When I was a kid, I had Rainbow Bright sheets." She laughs self-consciously, averting her eyes the way she does, and he watches her enthralled. "It was my mom trying to make me more of a girl. I always wanted Transformers, but she'd never let me have them."

Something about these moments seems infused with some kind of dawning magic, something thrilling and utterly exhilarant. Sitting high on this mountainside in the pouring rain, watching the sun rising over the ghostly vista below, he can almost forget that every inch of his body aches, that he is frozen to the bone, because in her small ways, Kate makes it okay. Kate is talking of intimate memories, Kate is opening up…

"I had Transformer's on my bed." He offers, and for a moment, this hangs in the crisp morning air. Then she turns to him and instead of the laughter or mocking rise of her eyebrows he'd expected to see, he sees her eyes are wide and naked suddenly, flared bright green…

"I blew mine up…" She whispers dully, as though expecting him to recoil away from her. Something about her declaration sends shivers through Sawyer he cannot stop, and he realizes suddenly that their boundaries are shifting without him even realizing it and it seems natural, it seems _right_ –

And he just smiles. "Remind me never to share a bed with you."

And then she laughs. She laughs so hard that he tries not to notice the glint of tears in her eyes or the hitch of her breath in her throat. And as the day dawns over the island, unable to penetrate the thick white clouds overhead or the storm which still rages, Kate rests her head on Sawyers shoulder. He puts an arm around her, and together they watch…

Maybe that is the primal difference between Jack and Sawyer, Kate muses later as they sit, still in silence. They haven't spoken for hours now, and she is glad of it. It seemed there was an almost unspoken agreement between the two of them that they had come far enough for one conversation, and she was grateful for that.

His reaction to her declaration about her bed (blowing it up, not the Rainbow Bright sheets) had thrown her completely. She had been pacing herself for his questions, his incessant twenty questions that he always gave whenever given the chance, but he had only stared at her with a look of – could it possibly have been understanding in his face? She wouldn't let herself believe it, but somewhere deep down inside, she desperately hoped he would react this way. That he would understand…

Because when it all boils down to it, maybe a friend is someone who listens to what she says… but a true friend listens to what she doesn't. Maybe a true friend is someone she can sit with, not say a word, and feel like she's just had the bestconversation in the world.

She's never felt this before.

* * *

As white daylight lances through the cracks in the Black Rock's deck along with the steadily pounding sound of rain, Alex stirs, groans. Her back is on fire, and God, why is she on the floor -!

Cracking open her eyes, she looks up to see Jack is already awake and staring at his hands fixedly. She meets his eyes blearily, blinking sleep away.

"Morning Doctor. How's my stats?"

He looks at her distractedly, like he doesn't recognize her or have any idea what she's doing here. Then he returns his gaze to his hands, and brow creasing, Alex looks to see what he's so transfixed by.

Jack hears her say, "Something you wanna share, Doc?"

Jack doesn't answer. It's like he's frozen in the night into some kind of statue, a replica of himself.

"Take this away from me." He says because he is unable to put down the dynamite. He wants to, Christ, he knows he has to, but his body won't respond to his commands. It's failing him, and he's scared –

He looks to Alex when she doesn't reply, knows she must be scared too, that this could explode any moment –

"Jack…" She says slowly, "What are you talking about?"

He looks to her desperately, eyes glowing. "Logic's gone. Everything's mixed up. I tried to put it down but I can't okay? I need you to take it out of my hands –"

"Jack --" She says breathlessly,

"I need you to take it okay, I need you to take it out of my hands --!"

_"Jack there's nothing there!" _

As the truth of her words sink in, Jack looks down…

His hands are empty.

* * *

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	16. I can't save everyone

**Chapter 16**

"**I can't save everyone."**

Jack returns Alex's look with one of rising fear, and he tries to hold on, but Jesus fucking _Christ_ –

"Alex," He says forcing his voice steady, "Alex it's okay. I'm okay. I… I must have… I guess I was dreaming, huh?"

And Alex only looks to him uncertainly. He doesn't like that look. He knows it well – it's the look he's sure he has worn when trying to placate patients who have gone crazy. "Come on," She says firmly, "You need the medication. I know where they keep a field stash out here --"

"I don't _need_ medication," Jack stands woozily, "I'm _fine_ --"

"Jack look at you --" She clambers up.

"I don't need _medication_ okay, I'm a doctor remember, I think I should know!"

"Jack, you seem to be forgetting what's going on here." She grips onto him, because he's swaying from side to side, can't get his balance, "You're not well, I _understand_ that. Did you sleep at all last night --!"

"Yes!" Jack lies, eyes burning, "I slept just fine, now will you _get your hands off of me --"_ He pulls himself roughly from her grip and slumps against the clammy wall.

When she continues to stare at him pleadingly, he feels his temper rising, a temper he never even knew he had, and before he knows what he is doing he is out of the Black Rock and stalking away into the rain, the endless rain, will it ever stop?

"Jack!" Alex cries from inside, _"Wait --"_

"Just stay there Alex!" He calls, knowing if he stops the anger and fear will catch up with him, he's liable to hit something, "I just need some air --"

And as he disappears into the bushes, Alex watches after him in worry.

* * *

Sawyer is shivering so damn hard it wakes him up in the early hours. Pissed off, he grunts and turns over then bellows in pain. _Damn leg --_

"Easy there, Tex…!"

He bats the sheets from his face to glare at Kate in the opposite bunk about four feet away, staring at him in amusement. Her breath fogs in the cold, and he's happy to see _she's _stolen all the damn blankets. She's still shivering though, he notes with a touch of satisfaction.

"Oh, nice an warm are we there Queen Tut? Glad to see you didn't _freeze_ to death last night --"

"_You_ gave me these," That infuriating playfulness is back dancing in her eyes again.

_Shit_. He'd forgotten about that. "Well you didn't have to accept 'em all! There is such a damn thing as being polite!" He retorts indignantly as he tries to lever himself up. _Damn it! _His bones are frozen so tight he can barely move. Must have been all that climbing.

"You wanna talk to _me_ about being polite..!" Kate bites her lip trying not to laugh. He really does look ridiculous cramped in that tiny bed. "Sawyer, your idea of polite is insisting on sleeping in the same room as me 'just in case anyone comes to get us!'"

"And what in hell is so offensive about that?" He looks at her in wounded pride, and she arches her eyebrows knowingly.

"Sawyer, somehow I don't think it's _them_ I have to worry about."

Damn her. She's getting a kick out of this. "Well I ain't sleeping on no sofa! Not with my leg, girlie, and in case you _forgot_, I bagged this room first, so if we're talking about how _polite_ I am, I think you'll find I'm an honest to goodness _saint_ for putting up with _you_ snoring all night --!"

"I do _not_ snore!" She fires back, "And how old are you, five! You can't bagsie a room Sawyer!"

"I think you'll find I did." He grits that smile, "And like I told you last night, you wanna sleep in here, clothes are a no-go."

"You just said you were suffering from hypothermia!"

"You know I'd warm you right up." He smiles as she rolls her eyes and he nods to her top, "My room, _my_ rules."

This is more like the old Sawyer, more like the way they were before they had been taken, before everything had gone so bad. It's like a safe routine, this banter, and somehow it's comforting. But behind the veneer of their offhand remarks, Kate feels electricity humming through every sentence, every twinkle in his eyes.

"These blankets are doing just fine." She smiles, deliberately baiting him, "I had a lovely warm nights sleep."

"Fine!" He says, sitting up. "I'm gonna get some air. And if I fall of the damn mountain because of lack of _sleep_, I hope you know it's _your_ fault."

"_Fine_." Kate says, shifting about on the bed, trying to get up too. "I'm getting up. Go back to sleep already, have the blankets!"

"Keep 'em! I don't need your charity --" He retorts, pulling at his sheets. Both wriggle about on their beds a moment, competing to see who can get moving first… then slowly, both lose steam…

"I can't move." Kate sighs dejectedly.

"Yeah me neither." Sawyer admits in annoyance. Wonderful. An entire day spent trading insults with a hormonal Freckles. This is gonna be a long day… and then he looks to her hopefully.

"Seeing as we got time to kill…?"

"The clothes are staying on, Sawyer."

He curses sulkily, rolling his eyes and mimicking her silently. Then he sneaks another furtive look -- and plasters on his most dashing grin.

"Anyone ever tell you how _beautiful_ you look all flushed and warm, Freckles?"

She laughs out loud, and shakes her head. "If you want a blanket Sawyer just ask!"

"Are you questioning my intentions!" He demands offended, eyes wide and innocent as a damn kitten.

"Always." She sighs, and he should have known that wouldn't wash with her. After a moment, he hears her biting back the giggles and she says, "Would you like a blanket Sawyer?"

She listens to him cursing and muttering, then hears a sulky "_Yes_."

She can't resist, "Yes what?"

"Go to hell." He scowls turning over and she bursts out laughing, throwing one of her blankets his way.

* * *

The tree canopy cuts out the worst of the rain as Jack darts blindly through the trees, unsure where he is going. His mind keeps returning relentlessly to the dynamite, how Dharma are getting stronger, taking him over inch by inch_, and the voices stab at him --_

_There are no answers out here you're just gonna get LOST –_

And suddenly, he grinds to a halt.

Because in the rain misted clearing up ahead, a violent black shadow stands tall. The voices whir through Jack, trembling through the air and rocketing along his bloodstream, forcing the hairs on his arms ramrod straight… and as he steps into the wet glade and the rain patters down, he struggles to say…

"_Dad!"_

The figure turns with a terrible, excruciating slowness… and Christian leers at him. Jack's breath catches in his throat as he tries to make sense of this, tries to _understand, _but there's no logic here anymore –

"_Dad, what are you doing here…" _

But in moments Christian has darted into the bushes, and dazed and uncomprehending Jack gives chase.

* * *

Kate wonders if Sawyer has gone back to sleep. She's getting antsy, hating being laid up while there's so much going on – but her body wont seem to respond to her commands to get up, to _move_. The exhaustion is deep in her bones. 

Maybe that's what makes her ask the question she was going over and over in her mind last night. She knows better than to expect a straight answer, but seeing as they're stuck in here together, maybe its time to get some answers…

"What were you talking to Garrett about last night?" Jesus, that's not what she meant to ask. But sometimes it's hard to get to the point…

Sawyer groans, and she momentarily feels a little bad for waking him up. But when she painfully turns over, she sees he is staring up at the ceiling, wide awake. She wonders what he was thinking about…

"This an' that." He sighs, "Dharma means 'abusin' the mind', the scientists went Lord of the Flies awhile ago, and his momma got --"

Sawyer sucks in his breath suddenly, and her eyes shoot to him. He is staring outwards, looking horrified at what he nearly said. Her attention piqued now, Kate rises onto her elbows and looks to him intently.

"What?" She looks to him questioningly, suddenly not wanting to know, not liking the direction this conversation is going but helpless to stop herself now, "His mother was here? On the Island?"

But Sawyer doesn't answer. He has gone someplace else inside his head by the looks of it, someplace terrible – he has tensed right up and the blood has drained from his face. Goosebumps rise on Kate's arms, and she knows that look. It's the same look he had in his eyes when he confessed how he became Sawyer… and what happened to his parents. The raw hurt which is suddenly there winds her.

"Sawyer…?" She asks tentatively, wishing she could make that look go away, knowing she can't, "Sawyer what happened to her?"

* * *

_Yeah, what happened to her James? That sure would make a lovely little story for the lady, wouldn't it now?_

Damn her to hell. And damn Garrett too – 'caus Sawyer's been struck by his own bullet. He had relentlessly questioned the scientist about his mother, and ever since has been stuck thinking about his own. Iron hearted Jenny Ford was never far from haunting him, nope, she made a damn art form out of taking residence in his thoughts.

_Sawyer, what happened to her?_

* * *

Kate's stomach does a slow turn, but somehow she knows better than to push him any further on the subject. 

"Back on the beach…" Suddenly he mouth is dry and its hard to talk, but she forces herself to ask it, to ask the question… "I can't believe you sometimes. After everything that happened, you still think I'd run?"

He blinks a little, coming back to himself and she is glad. She hated that look in his eyes – it was utterly freezing and dark, and she didn't recognize him.

"Course I do." He says thickly, "I think we had this lil' fireside conversation before, sweetheart. Ain't nothin' worth stayin' for, remember?"

She stares at him, face obscured beneath the sheets, the cramped distance between them suddenly seeming too small, like it would be all too easy to reach out, grip his hand which hangs and tell him she would have stayed for him, she _had_ stayed for him when it counted…

"And ain't nothing's changed. I think you said _that_ too." Sawyer says gruffly, looking into her to see if she agrees. She can't read the expression on his face, it's almost like he _wants_ her to contradict him. Finally, she meets his eye and grips his hand gently.

"How's your hand?"

She sneaks a look at his face. It is carefully controlled, revealing nothing to her… but she feels his hand flinch under her touch like she's just given him an electric shock.

"Feels like a damn Thanksgiving parade's trampled over it." He grumbles.

"That good huh?" She pulls back, as she forces herself to sit and groans. Her side throbs like its got its own heartbeat. Sawyer immediately props himself up on his elbows shooting her a look,

"Well if you insist on kissin' it _better_, Freckles --"

"I'm gonna go check up on Garrett." She winces, forcing her legs over the side of the bed and standing with an effort. She feels lightheaded and dizzy, and wonders how much of it is the bullet wound and how much is the implant getting worse…

"And since when does the damn Nutty Professor need more checking up on than me!" He says indignantly, "Last time I checked, Sherman Klump had all his limbs in tact!"

Pushing it to the back of her mind, she ties her hair back and forces a smile to Sawyer, "Maybe since he's the one trying to fix the computer to get us out of here?" She pulls on her jacket in the cold, and rubs her sides to keep warm. "Besides - I have to hear anymore of your complaining and I might just take a _walk _of this cliff."

"You're not one of those mopey types goes killin' yerself over fellas now are ya Freckles? Ain't no need over lil' ole me now –" His gaze takes on a sharp playfulness as he grins, "Just kiss me and be done with it."

She folds her arm, and just as she goes to reply, a deafening klaxon blasts through the hatch and they both freeze. Loud banging drifts down the corridor, like a mallet is being taken to something --

* * *

Branches whipping, heart pounding and breath racing, Jack tears through the jungle – and suddenly, he is amazed to find his father has lead him back to the Black Rock. As Jack stands in the pouring rain staring upwards at the looming ship, Alex is nowhere to be seen… but he doesn't care. Right now, his attention is fixed on the mast, where his father climbs up the sloping towards the crows nest. Breathlessly, Jack gives chase.

* * *

As the Klaxon blares loudly Kate supports Sawyer as they hobble into the dimly lit machine room. It is the same as the timer countdown klaxon from the other hatch, and it sets her teeth on edge – 

"What the hell are you doing!" Sawyer demands hoarsely as they see that instead of murdered mutilated or shot, Garrett is merrily banging away under the computer.

Garrett glances up in surprise, pushing up his bright orange goggles eagerly and grinning. "Oh! Morning!"

"Morning?" Sawyer repeats incredulously and Kate shoots him a warning look. "Morning he says! Get _out_ from there!"

Garrett scuttles out from under the table sheepishly and Kate shouts over the din,

"So what's with the noise?"

"Noise!" Garrett calls, then realizes what she means and hits a nearby button on a console. "Oh! I- I'm sorry, did I wake you?"

"No! How could you think that!" Sawyer cries and Kate bites back a smile.

"I told you last night I could get us out of here!" Garrett beams, flapping around the console proudly like its his pride and joy. "Well, after I left you last night I started working on the mainframe here, trying to get it up and running again." He turns to them with excited eyes, _"And I think I found a way to do it."_

Sawyer and Kate exchange shocked looks as Garrett flicks a switch and the computer blares to life. He happily gestures to the screen. "The Door used to be the topside base for all Dharma operations. These computer systems are the only ones with links off the Island." And proudly, he beams,

"I hailed a ship! _It's coming!"_

* * *

The bracing wind and vicious downpour drive the wind from Jack as he battles to climb the slippery wet mast, rung over rung. His father is climbing ever higher above him, and just seeing him again drives cramps of grief through Jack, he's never known anything like it – 

"_Dad!" _He cries desperately, _"Dad stop, please!"_

_Just count to ten and beat the fear, _he remembers telling Kate in the rain what seems another lifetime ago, _One, two, three… _

His hands tremble as they clench around the freezing rungs,

_Four, five –_

His foot slips and he gasps, his weight suddenly flying out into the air – he swings his legs around and grips onto the mast again, heart thudding wildly against his ribcage, and for a moment, his legs dissolve to jelly. The drop is dizzying, the vertigo makes him nauseous.

_Take it easy… breathe… five. Five, six…_

The crows nest hangs precariously above the tree canopy, and Jack watches his father leap into the nest like he's a damn Olympic hurdler. Bracing himself, but unable to stop his teeth chattering, he forces himself ever upwards… and into the crows nest, where he finally contemplates the sodden mess which is his father.

"Dad…" He hitches furiously, feeling his mind spinning away from him forever, "Dad, why do you keep coming back here? _Why can't you leave me alone!"_

"Stand up straight Jack," Christian complains through the rain with the world weariness of a father sick to death of repeating himself to his son, advancing worriedly, "And good Lord, what have you done to your head!"

"This is some kind of stress related hallucination." Jack backs away and splays out a warning hand _stay back _as he tries to convince himself,"That's all this is. You're not here, and I'm _not going crazy –"_

As thunder rumbles overhead threateningly Christian's eyes crinkle mirthlessly,

"Well that's where I'm afraid we're gonna have to differ, my boy. Because I'm definitely standing here… so are you going crazy? _Maybe you are."_

Jack shakes his head, manic intelligence gleaming in his eyes, "This is _Dharma_, I know what they're doing! I know what this is, this is them finding you in my mind, finding out how much I hated you, and knowing they could use you to get a reaction from me. Well it won't work – _you're not here, you're DEAD --"_

Christian suddenly grips hold of jack and shoves him hard. Jack's feet fly out from beneath him and his back cracks against the railing – and suddenly the world swings sickeningly upside down. His hands frantically griphis fathers soaking Armani blazer, clench into his arms as he _realizes his father is holding him over the drop from the crows nest –_

Christian stares down at him, ghostly pale in the cold, hair dripping over his forehead, icy eyes manic as he poses the question softly,

"Still think I'm in your head?"

* * *

"When!" Kate steps forth, a burst of fire rocketing through her veins, "And where, where is it coming to!" 

"The east side of the island –" Garrett says breathlessly, "I remembered you said that you had friends over there, well, we can all go! We can all be _rescued_ from this nightmare --"

But Sawyer interjects bullishly, "Hey now, as much as I wanna get _outta_ this seventh circle of hell, I think we're _forgetting_ a little something here – say, the chip in my head lets people know what I'm _thinking! _I'd kinda appreciate getting that _out_ --"

"When we reach the mainland, I can help you." Garrett says passionately, "I won't let anything happen to you guys. Nobody will know about what happened to you here –"

He scrabbles for his wallet in his pocket and shows Sawyer a picture of a red faced woman, looks like Aunt Sally. "This is my wife – she's head of psychoanalytical research at --" He looks perplexed, "Well, I'm not sure now. Haven't seen her in nearly twenty years now…" His eyes cloud a moment, then he quickly shakes the emotion away. "But she'd help us. I know it."

Sawyer looks over the photograph, unsure if he would trust a woman who looks like she would be more at home riding a tractor loose with a scalpel on his brain works. "Hmm." He says, making no effort to hide his unease, "She looks… interesting."

* * *

Jack nods his head mechanically, heart yammering crazily in his ears as his father yanks him back to safety in the crows nest. The platform squeals in protest at such treatment as Christian scowls at Jack. 

"_Look at you._ Jesus, after everything I gave you, all those years of my life, all those hundreds and thousands of dollars I washed down the drain for your med school education, you end up here. Washed up_. A loser._ Then again, I don't know why I'm surprised…" He leans close, eyes radiating freeing wrath, "You always were one hell of a failure, Jack. You were never the son I should have had."

Jack laughs hysterically, in bitter hurt and disbelief. "I _tried_, Dad… I tried so hard to be what you wanted, to fit into your little mould of what you wanted me to be, I tried so hard that in the end, I forgot I was even trying, and I looked in the mirror one day, and I saw _you_." His eyes burn with pain, "I saw _you_, Dad. And I was never good enough because _you_ were never good enough. I could never win."

Christian returns his look in shock, like these words have struck him someplace deep inside, and instinctively Jack knows its true. Everything he has felt all these years, the unworthiness, the fear of always falling into his father's shadow, its all _true_.

"I'll never be what you want." Jack says, oblivious now to the sting of the rain. Everything has narrowed down to him and his father, as he finally says his piece, " I'll never be good enough, I'll never _save_ everyone. _I can't." _His eyes blaze as he pleads, "I need you to _understand_ that…"

"Then what else have you got, Jack?" Christian says darkly,

"You think you crashed here and suddenly found out what it is to be a better person? _That's bullshit and you know it --" _

"Because I know better now. You brainwashed me Dad, you made me believe that the most important things in this world were respectability, but you were a drunk. You told me to be honest, but you lied time and time again to me, to mom. And I _knew_ that's what you thought of me, I knew I was always a second rate model to you, but I thought, I lived with that, every day of my life, and I never complained. I never asked you for anything, and you never gave anything. But I always thought, I'll prove him wrong."

"And just how have you proved me wrong?" Christian scoffs angrily, and Jack can see something is very wrong here now. The veins on his fathers forehead are bulging and he suddenly knows Dharma are running out of steam – _he's winning this --!_

And Jack smiles through the rain at him, "When I got here, people didn't see what wasn't good enough in me anymore. They saw me as somebody who could help, somebody who could save people. And I _did_ it, I healed people _within_ _my_ _means_. But people died, and I know now there was nothing I could have done. I let myself off the hook. Right here and now. Because sometimes things are taken out of my hands. Sometimes things aren't black and white, some people aren't good or bad, right or wrong. I know that now, I understand that now –"

Christian seems to wilt somehow, all the poison seems to drain from him. And he shakes his head, and as he does so, Jack suddenly knows with a crazy pang of sorrow that this is really the last time he will see him. This is really it. He has said his piece.

And Christian claps his hand on Jack's shoulder, a look like fulfilment races through his eyes. A final acceptance, maybe of his wayward son.

As the weight of Christian's hand hits Jack's shoulder, a shudder trembles through him. He gasps, involuntarily flinching and squeezing his eyes shut –

"_Jack… Jack!"_

And when he opens his eyes, he is standing atop the creaking crows nest in the storm, alone. He looks outwards as the grief at the final loss of his father collides with the joy of seeing the acceptance in his eyes before he went.

And as he looks down over the edge of the crows nest, he sees Alex waving up at him frantically in worry. Sliding down the slippery mast finally, as soon as his feet hit the deck Alex collides with him and hugs him tightly, scared and trembling but _furious –_

"What are you doing up there, how could you leave me out here alone, with everything that's happened Jack! I need you with me, we have to stay _together_ --"

As he hugs her tightly, the voices return suddenly, doubled in strength as if making up for lost time, and they whisper of the warmth in him, the warmth Alex brings, the incredible rush of emotion, and she's whispering,

"_Are you okay?"_

And he looks down into her face, heartbreakingly beautiful in the rain, and he laughs as tears roll down his cheeks because he is free, his father is free, and they no longer bind each other with their hatred,

"_I let myself off the hook." _He whispers to Alex, laughing in delicious amazement, _"I let myself off the hook."_

And finally, he pulls her close and kisses her fully. As she leans into him fully, hands tenderly running over his hair and face, he knows that nothing will ever be the same again. And as her hands run under his shirt, he lets his hands mimic hers, travelling beneath her blouse, feeling her warmth…

… and as Alex pulls him along, Jack lets her lead him down.

* * *

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	17. True Illusions

**Chapter 17**

**True Illusions**

The rain hasn't stopped for two days now. And on the dawning of the third day, as the sun is smothered by the continuing storm, Sawyer stiffly sits outside the mountaintop hatch and watches in utter disbelief as flecks of snow drift down from the stormy sky. As flakes sigh onto his forearms with their icy coolness, he lifts his face up, catches them on his tongue with childlike wonder… _and he'll be damned._

They're _real_…

He gets that awful sinking feeling inside, the feeling that somehow, even though rescue is coming, things are unstoppably turning against them. Hell, nothing's ever been easy in this damn place, but looking out over the vast tropical island as an ominous blanket of white eases down, it feels _worse_ than that… because looking out, Sawyer is struck by a terrible sense of dread.

This isn't right. Snow don't fall on tropical islands. It feels bad, sinister… like in the dawn, the end is finally coming. One way or another… first came the damn flood from heaven, now even that has frozen over. He'd be glad to see the fucking _rain_, already…

Alone, looking outwards at the impossible sight, it feels like time is running out.

_It feels like the end of the world…_

* * *

Jack awakens groggily to a pounding headache. Every bone in his body aches, and for a moment he doesn't know where he is, why he's aching or where his clothes have gone. And then he looks down, and he remembers last night. 

He strokes Alex's sleeping head, which rests on the makeshift pillow next to him and he remembers how he had wondered if this was right, if she wasn't too young… but there is something _about_ this girl, she isn't a child, as he'd first thought. She has lived her life in situations which may have driven any adult insane, and yet she has pulled through intact. He respects her immensely, and as he looks down at her in the dappled light, the hiss of the rain outside a soothing roar, he smiles softly. _He lets himself off the hook. _From here on in, he will not judge her – she had wanted this as much as him, and it felt right. And the most important thing he realized last night, was that he didn't want to _fix_ Alex – he no longer credited himself that he could. But maybe he didn't need to.

Maybe they could be fine as they were… _maybe that is enough. _

Smiling softly, he brushes the hair from her shoulder so he can wake her with a kiss, already wondering how she will react… when his forehead creases.

For a moment, Jack is unable to do anything but stare.

In reality, time seems to grind to a halt.

Because as he looks down, his stomach clenching in anxiety, blood beginning to race through his veins at breakneck speed, he gently parts the hair above Alex's right ear. If Jack didn't know what he was looking for, he may have missed it entirely. There was no scar, no mark, and the hair had grown perfectly back… but Jack new the dollar sized bump which protruded from her head as well as he knew the same one rose from his own.

* * *

Kate wrestles her way into consciousness from thick, restless sleep to find The Door has grown even colder overnight – and sometime during the night, Sawyer has covered her with his blanket as well as her own. It smells husky, sweet. As she dazedly realizes this, rubbing sleep from her eyes, she feels absurdly touched and shakes her head in disbelief. She gives up on trying to predict him. 

As she pads along the cool, echoing corridors, she finds the main hatchway has already been rolled back and a shaft of pure white daylight illuminates a figure sitting just outside. Bracing herself for his barbed comments about her hogging all the blankets again, she reaches the doorway and for a moment, she forgets to breathe.

_The sky is a mess of tumbling snow… _

As the dread hits her, Sawyer turns to her in resignation, eyes dancing in disbelief. In this diffused light, with the snow catching in his hair and sky blue eyes twinkling in united disbelief, she sees how this has affected him, in the dark circles beneath his eyes and the paleness of his face.

"Santa and Rudolph said howdy." He gestures to the snow heavy sky, "And they left presents." Then he gestures to a pack of Lucky Strikes with a crooked grin, "But I smoked yours 'caus you hogged the blankets again."

Kate is lost for words, mindblown. How does he do that? The bitter lead lining of anxiety which had suddenly sprung in the pit of her stomach recedes a little at his words, enough for her to force a smile and get a handle on her voice.

"Thief." She whispers, and he rolls his eyes.

"Makes two of us." He smirks back, standing and leaning heavily on his crutch. He notices Kate staring out in dull horror, and sighs, "What do we care, am I right Freckles? We're gonna be leaving Craphole Island in the dust by nightfall. This hell can freeze over into a damn glacier for all I care."

"You don't mean that," She says softly, "We've had some good times here. For awhile, it really seemed like… it seemed like I could get used to it. Like I was free."

He looks to her in shock. "Free? Darlin', you really gotta twisted notion of freedom --"

But Sawyer never finishes his sentence. Because an almighty crash of waves suddenly resounds from the distant ocean, and they both spin to look outwards in shock through the whipping snowstorm.

Massive churning circles boil away in the sea to the west. For a lunatic moment Sawyer thinks God himself is whisking himself up pancake batter for breakfast, they're such colossal, perfect circles – instinctively Kate and Sawyer grip hold of one another, just as the Klaxon blares from inside, starling them even worse –

As Garrett tears out with a ridiculous orange parka zipped over his filthy white lab coat he has the look of a hunted animal, and it makes Sawyer flare protectively – then the churning water morphs and as he turns, his breath catches in his throat.

Gleaming silver submersibles emerge from the depths in sprays of foam, four, five, _six – _and they plough through the water like sleek bullets from nowhere. Holy shit, _they're heading for the beach --! _

"They're coming!" Garrett chokes, "Oh my! Oh goodness they're coming for us!"

"That's it!" Sawyer yells over the immense ruckus of broiling seawater from below and that goddamn klaxon, _"That's your damn rescue!"_

"No!" Garrett says, and his eyes literally glow with fear, "No, it's the _Agents!_ They locked in on my signal from the computer! _They're coming, we have to leave right now!" _

And without waiting for an answer, Garrett tugs at Kate and gets her moving. And just before Sawyer follows them, he takes one last look out towards the faraway snowy beach as the first submersible hits the reef.

His guts clench nastily as he watches the sub ram itself through the perfect snow and gouge itself into the sand dunes, where its cargo bay opens… and armoured tanks roll onto the white dunes, flanked by teams of soldiers in hazard suits, and the voices rise,

_You can't run, we'll find you, you can't escape you're our SPECEMIN --_

* * *

The tremors jar Alex from her sleep. She stretches fully, the antics of last night coming back to her, and she blushes. The doctor was not the one she had initially felt the sting of attraction for. He had not radiated an animal magnetism which made her go weak at the knees and he wasn't in possession of what (she suspected) were a killer pair of pecks. But Jack had been what she needed. She needed the safety and normalcy that he brought, the sweet sense that she wasn't losing her mind – and if she was, that they were losing them together. At least there was some kind of dying unity in that… 

As the tremors fade, she sits and is amazed to see snow drifts have piled up at the corners of the room where parts of the deck overhead have rotted clear away. She forces herself not to think about what this may mean – she's very good at blocking these things out when necessary.

She totters about a moment, picking up her clothes from the damp dark wooden floor. Everything in here is off kilter, as The Black Rose has slumped into a diagonal posture. Ducking beneath beams and shimmying down the decaying ladder into the main cargo hold, and hoping to surprise Jack, _she jumps down –_

But finds the hold is empty. Only the eternally creaking wood around her, and the dazzling snow drifting through the yawning hole cruelly ripped into the Roses' starboard side.

_Where is he…?_

* * *

"Where the hell are they coming from!" Kate yells, rocks scattering as they make their way down the mountainside slope, "There's nothing _out_ there!" 

"The island sits directly above the underwater research station –" Garrett huffs, "The Staff reactor runs like a core throughout this island, holding it together –"

"We _know_ that!" Sawyer bellows, desperately trying to keep his balance with his busted leg, "I'm a little more worried about the damn _tanks_ on our tails!"

"There's a strong military presence down there --" Garrett wheezes, "Sergeant Gale brought them in to neutralize the scientists back in the 90's and they never _left_ --"

They duck behind a fall of palm fronds and down into a glade where they finally take a rest, look about. The sun strains high through the grey snow clouds, and Garrett is looking about like a bloodhound to the scent. "This way," He nods heading off, but Sawyer is rooted to the spot.

"Just where in hell are you going, son!"

Garrett spins in surprise, "Oh. Oh, excuse me I forgot – There are two secret hatchways we can hide out in until nightfall, until the boat comes – they were built as fallback shelters if anything untoward happened at The Door –"

Suddenly, the world darkens. It's like a fucking solar _eclipse_, like the sun has just been extinguished from the sky… and Garrett's words die in his throat. As their eyes all travel upwards to the snow filled sky, all three are lost for words. It's like night-time has just jumped in on them in the space of twenty minutes.

"Son of a bitch…" Sawyer breathes in horror.

"It's mind tricks…" Garrett says breathlessly, "Psychological warfare – they don't want us to get away --"

Kate instinctively grabs Sawyer, her survival instincts ramming into gear, "Come on." She whispers harshly, _"We gotta get out of the open --" _

But just before Sawyer moves, he pulls his trusty Beretta from his bag, and presses another handgun into Kate's hand. She looks to him with wide eyes.

"Another present from Santa." He says grimly, and looks to Garrett who quickly holds his hands up anxiously --

"I don't want one, _I hate those things --"_

And Sawyer knows why. He doesn't offer him one again.

* * *

Alex is recklessly snaking through the woods when the sky blacks out. She grinds to a halt in horror, as the blinding snow falls heavily. Jack is nowhere to be found, he never came back – and as the day wore on, she heard terrible sounds from across the Island, sounds of heavy machinery and crashing… she had to find him, she couldn't let him leave her behind – 

Suddenly she hears stealthy footsteps on the path behind her. Without hesitation, Alex dives into nearby bushes and shrinks away from the remaining light. When she peers through the snowy leaves, she sees a tall woman cautiously pacing through the unnatural darkness, hair a dark crazy mane, with a deadly looking rifle slung over her arm. She looks insane, like she has been subjected to years of gas experimentation, and Alex's insides clench with fear as the woman passes…

… then stops mere feet away from her hiding place. Alex's bowels turn to ice, and she can barely breathe lest she give herself away… the barrel of the rifle gleams wet with snow, inches away…

And then a mans voice, trailing behind. Her heart pounds momentarily, thinking it may be Jack – but this voice is sharp, curled with an accent she can't place.

"Danielle --" The voice demands breathlessly and to Alex's fear she sees the man approach on the path, a heavyset Arab with a wild shock of jet black hair. "Danielle we must tell the others – if you truly think you heard noises, we should return _armed_ --"

"_Go back Sayid."_ The woman barks, and Alex marvels at her accent, so foreign and beautiful somehow, and she suddenly wants to stand up, wants to hear this woman speak to her. "Something terrible is happening," The woman says plaintively, "I can _feel_ it -- It happened this way before. When they took her, when the gas was released that killed my team. They came from the West then – I need to find her Sayid, if she's there, I need to get her back --"

"We will Danielle, _Danielle --" _Alex watches the man called Sayid grip the woman Danielle tightly, "But we must do this properly. You _will_ see her again. But we must make sure we are prepared. Do you understand me?"

Alex watches the woman called Danielle nod, then the strange couple dissolve away through the shattered darkness and are quickly enveloped by the snow. For a moment, Alex just sits there, a strange sense of loss thrumming through her which stings her throat and brings sudden tears to her eyes. _It must be the gas, _she thinks, _I have to hurry. _

* * *

Jack is lost. He was standing by a rocky waterfall when the strange darkness hit, lost in a daydream of a nightmare. He had stumbled across this place maybe minutes, maybe hours ago and has been riveted ever since, because he knows his mind has finally spun off the fragile axis of reality forever. 

He had seen Kate and Sawyer marching towards the waterfall and had yelled in amazement for them, run towards them in knee buckling relief only for them to ignore him. He had stood firing questions as they stripped to their underwear and dove into the water before his eyes, leaving him to wonder in bewilderment when they had changed clothes and why Kate's side was not wounded from being shot…

He watched Kate and Sawyer swim through the murky depths, frolic in the surf, and slowly, he understood. Like everything else, like the snow, like his father, he knew they were not there at all.

_True illusions, Jack, all of them. _

This is Dharma finally closing in on him, tightening their grip on his mind by showing him things he didn't want to see. Maybe things which, in essence he feared most… showing him Kate happy, Kate carefree and laughing _without him. _And he can only watch miserably as they scale the rock face and dive into the churning surf through the dazzling snow, forever oblivious to him.

When the darkness hits him, he feels the eclipse not just removing the sun from the world, but it feels as though it eclipses all hope in his heart. The fragile truce he had struck with his father yesterday seems hopelessly faraway and empty, the beauty of the night he had shared with Alex happened in another lifetime, as he stands alone in the falling snow, as the twisted darkness steals in all around him, swallowing his last delusions and hopes whole.

_She lied to you Jack, _those voices stab and whimpering in fury he rakes his hands mercilessly over his head, tries to block them out, _She's been implanted and why didn't she tell you? What is she hiding behind that perfect face? _

_Can you really handle finding out?_

* * *

Hiking through the sludgy forest in the pitch dark, with a goddamn busted leg. Jesus, every time it gets worse – and as Sawyer glances to his watch and reads the time is three fifty in the afternoon, he knows worse don't even begin to cover this. First snow, then darkness – if it didn't feel like the goddamn end of the world this morning, it sure as hell does now. 

Garrett the goddamn energizer bunny is blazing a trail up ahead, never slowing, and Sawyer groans inwardly as Kate shoots him another of her warning looks laced with worry from up ahead. He hates it that she's healing so much faster than him, can make it a whole two steps quicker… "You making it okay back there?"

"Wonderful." Sawyer grunts, thinking if she tries to help him again he really will shove her into the damn mud. The damn radio in his heads playing all kinds of nasty shit, and he's trying hard not to listen…

"You think we could change the frequency of these bad boys?" He mutters as the snowflakes slither down his back, kiss his face, "Caus I'm getting' mighty tired of hearing what a less than adequate human being I am."

He suddenly realizes it's the first time either has fully admitted to hearing voices and he could fucking _kick_ himself. As if she wasn't already gonna be on her goddamn high horse because she was making better time than him, now she could gloat that he was going _nuts_ first too.

"You're hearing voices?" Kate says, eyes lancing with fear suddenly as she approaches through the fluttering snow, "What are you hearing? What are they saying to you?"

"Kill Kate. _Kill_ _Kate_ --" He sticks his arms out like a zombie, and she shakes her head in disgust, like she expected more from him. To hell with her, he didn't give up his secrets that easy, and Lord, he thought if he didn't laugh right now, the other option was liable to come crashing down on him and he wouldn't be able to stop –

Suddenly a distant roar starts up. Like slowly approaching thunder…

Garrett turns in horror, and meets Kate and Sawyer's eyes.

Slowly approaching thunder_… or slowly approaching_ _tanks_.

Garrett's eyes flare with primal fear and he hisses desperately, "Oh my God! _Come on!" _

* * *

The rush of blood which burns through Kate in those seconds eradicates any bonds or rationality – in those moments, her primal instincts kick in and her mind locks down, with only one vital imperative pulsing through her. 

_Get away get away GET AWAY!_

And Kate runs. This primal urge which has sustained her throughout her terrible years on the run kick in as her senses slam into sickening red alert, a fundamental reaction which feels like coming home. Through the battering snow she runs, through the mud swelled jungle which has been cloaked in such dense darkness, following that orange parka which darts forth ahead, running hard, running from that terrible roar, from capture, from imprisonment, from her past and her present _and all the demons in between – _

It is only when hands grip her and her feet nearly fly out from beneath her in the mud that she tears a glance into Garrett's eyes.

"We're here!" Garrett cries as the roaring heightens into a heady tearing sound, like branches and underbrush are being crushed. Kate tears a frantic look about – _there's nothing here!_

"_Where!" _She cries, _"Where!"_

And Garrett gestures up, up through the darkness which has befallen the world, and Kate has to bite back a laugh of hysteria.

A rope ladder winds down from the tree canopy. As she grabs it, Garrett is looking outwards anxiously, "Hey! _Where's Sawyer!" _

"_He was right behind me!"_ Kate falters, tearing her wildly confused gaze out into the pitch black jungle as the awful crashing closes in and the voices rise, _stabbing at her,_

_You left him behind, you told him you'd stay, but he knew you would run Katie – you always do, in the end. You'll never change and now he's GONE --_

Looking outwards through the freezing snow, she screams for him as her heart rises in her chest and the sick guilt ices over her heart,

"_Sawyer!"_

_

* * *

_

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	18. Of History and Destiny

**Chapter 18**

**Of History and Destiny**

Kate jumps down to the muddy earth to Garrett's utter shock, and starts _towards_ the oncoming crashing of the tanks – he grips her coat and yanks her back desperately, eyes blazing, _"Where are you going!"_

"_I have to find him!" _She cries over the roar –

"_Kate you think I wanna leave him out there!"_

"_Then let me go!"_

"_But there's no TIME --"_

Kate wrenches her arm from his, eyes blazing and Garrett knows better than to try and stop her. She spins, loading a mag into the gun Sawyer had given her numbly as she barrels back into the treacherous darkness. The snow is hardening into hail, bullets from everywhere batter and sting her mercilessly. Branches tear at her, her side burns with pain but she refuses to quit as the voices chip away at her soul,

_He's a goner, he's lost and its your fault because you left him behind –_

Suddenly she hears footfalls and the voices have distracted her – she furiously knows in those seconds before she skids to a stop that they have beaten her, that it's over --

Because as Kate watches a glistening shape morph from the bushes, her heart rams into her throat as the shape takes focus, knowing all the while that she is looking straight down the barrel of a gun.

* * *

Agent Blue is smiling. 

As the hail whips past the truck's black windows, he turns to Henry Gale with a look of satisfaction, illuminated by the computer screens surrounding him. They relay a jumble of information – interrupted thought streams, flickering images of old memories. A four-year-old James practices shooting a very large rifle with his daddy on one screen, a mountainside vista where Sarah is dressed in a wedding gown, gripping Jack's hands joyfully flickers over the second, and on the third, a teenage Kate sits in a blue room peacefully, staring out at a crazed landscape.

"Are they close?" Henry demands, drinking in all this information, eyes glazed with an almost primal desire to recapture them, to continue this experiment. Agent Blue's smile widens into a dead eyed beam, as he taps a computer screens proudly and proclaims,

"This specimen -- _Jack_. He is not holding up. His mind is buckling." The computer screen reads Jack's crazed thought process, continuously updating as they talk,

_Why won't they talk to me all they do is swim and don't they miss me Christ Jack they're not here --_

"He is surplus to requirements. But the others…" His eyes take on a malicious gleam, and he grows excited, animated, "Their tolerance to the implants is very high. They are an excellent pair."

"You got to test them," Henry says darkly, looking out into the jungle searchingly, "You got to give them everything you've got. Make absolutely certain they are good hosts."

Agent Blue nods, manoeuvring through different screens on the computer. He pulls up a file identical to Jack's, but most of this thought process is incoherent, an illegible mess of stars blocking the Agent from reading it. The name reads _James Ford. _This James Ford infuriates Agent Blue.

"These specimens are certainly spirited." Henry muses, "Let's round them up. I think it is time to play our trump card..." Henry nods, and Agent Blue looks briefly apprehensive… then nods.

"Bring back in Agent Orange, huh?" Agent Blue whistles in approval and even Henry gets a look of admiration about him.

"One of the best Agent's around." Henry beams proudly, "Call them home, Agent Blue. Orange will return the specimens, as planned."

Agent Blue nods resolutely, turning to his console. He begins firing off type into the computer, and the words appear;

_You killed me, you bastard… you monster…_

* * *

As Kate steps forth, already planning on how to grapple the gun away from the guard and make a run for it, she freezes. She doesn't know whether to laugh or scream at him when Sawyer steps out of the brush looking spooked, but mighty satisfied to have caught her off guard. 

"_Well look who it ain't --!"_

Without wasting time replying Kate grabs him roughly and they tear back towards Garrett –

"Why'd you come back --" He spits heatedly over the ruckus, _"Guilty conscience --?"_

"Would a little gratitude be too much to ask!" Kate yells angrily, "Maybe you'd like it better lost --!"

"I wasn't _lost,"_ He snarls mimicking her tone as Garrett waves to them through the falling blanket of snow, a shifting orange parka which morphs in and out of the darkness as the roar of the tanks threatens ever closer –

As they plough those last steps towards the rope ladder, Kate is up it in a flash, before Sawyer can even finish his sentence. As he approaches that orange parka with wilting relief, he claps hold of Garrett who jumps down to help him up – when he freezes. His bowels turn to ice.

Because as he looks up into that hood, it is Duckett staring back, but this time he is deathly white, his eyes are glazed, opaque holes which sear _right through Sawyer's fucking heart as Duckett rasps --_

_You killed me you bastard. You monster, I had a daughter who was waiting for me that night, waiting for me to come home but I never did, you just left me by that dumpster bleeding my life away. You ran away. You lousy bastard -- I'll get you back. It'll come back around, I swear to you -- I'll get you back --_

Sawyer pinwheels back, pushing Duckett roughly away from him. Kate who is already up the ladder can only watch in horror as Sawyer looks up, mouth yawning in silent horror, unable to formulate a response --

"Sawyer – " Garrett holds his hand out desperately, _"What are you doing!" _He looks down in shock as Sawyer stares up at him, eyes dark with hatred.

"Sawyer!" Kate hisses furiously, _"Get the hell up here!"_

"_I didn't know you had a daughter…"_ Sawyer says, heart heaving, ears ringing and Lord in Heaven _his head hurts so much --_

"I – I _don't_ -- " Garrett beseeches in confusion, gripping Sawyers hand and wrenching him close, "Listen to me – I _know_ what's happening here –"

Duckett's face is inches from Sawyers and Lord in heaven, if sanity were leather right now, Sawyer couldn't saddle a flea. This is like every nightmare he ever had multiplied by infinity. To see those hideous eyes misted by decay, skin rotting away, to see every line and vein in this dead mans face, to feel his hot breath on his face, _it's fucking horrific – _

_Don't you believe me? _Duckett leers a toothless grin, _I'm gonna get you. Wipe your scummy ass from the face of this earth. You're gonna die slow and painful, James. And that pretty piece of ass of yours is going first, right in front of you. Just like your MOTHER --_

"They call them _true illusions_ –" Garrett's words spill out breathlessly, "They're like waking dreams, which come as a direct representation of all your deep seated fears --"

But Sawyer isn't hearing him, Garrett realizes with a terrible sinking feeling, he's not in this world. So bracing himself grimly, he swings _– and slaps Sawyer hard across the face._

Sawyer gasps, eyes splaying wide like he has just been hit by a bolt of lightning as his hand flies to his face --

"_Its not REAL --!"_ Garrett implores urgently, "Sawyer, don't ever believe it. You have to believe _me." _He extends his hand and it is shaking, shaking bad as his voice rises desperately, "I'll never lie to you. But they're coming. I can hide us. _Please --"_

"_They're comin' --"_ Sawyer breathes from hopelessly faraway, "The cops -- I gotta run, _I'm goin' down --" _

"_Listen to me --"_ Garrett wrenches him close and now the crashing of the tanks has taken on an all enveloping roar – Garrett's eyes burn into Sawyers desperately, "You're _not_ going down! _Ain't nobody putting a bullet in you, brother,_ you gotta _remember_ that --!"

These words seem to bleed through Sawyers consciousness, way down through his thrashing blood and blackened heart all the way into his fucked up psyche, where they flame and roil,

_Ain't nobody putting a bullet in you brother_

_YOU'RE the monster under the bed Jimmy_

_After everything that happened, you still think I'd run?_

_I hailed a ship! It's coming! _

_Monsters don't save people…_

_We can all be rescued from this nightmare _

… _and monsters don't get saved _

But that one sentence rings through, _rings true _amidst the lies and the madness.

_Ain't nobody putting a bullet in you brother_

And when Sawyer rams back into reality he sees Garrett through the lousy hail, the dependable, damn stubborn as a mule Nutty Professor holding out his hand pleadingly, eyes burning in a way Sawyer has never seen before.

"_Please –_ Sawyer, its safe up here, _come on!" _Garrett is motioning to a ladder, and Sawyer mutters in disbelief,

"You gotta be _kiddin' me…"_ This is a _bad_ idea - Sawyer can't think of a better way to break his neck and end this whole sorry mess than to be climbing trees with a busted leg in this crazy snowy darkness. But hell, good judgement comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from _bad_ judgement…

"Sawyer --" Kate hisses desperately and as he turns he sees the first glimmer of the tanks battering through the darknessAnd deciding he'd rather take his chances with the tree than the tanks, gritting his teeth against the fiery pain burning its merry way through his leg, Sawyer swings his arm out and catches Garrett's through the shadows. Kate heaves with Garrett and as the tanks blaze their floodlights through the pitch dark jungle, they make it up in the nick of time.

When Sawyer clambers to a wooden platform high within the tree canopy and collapses, leg cramping in agony, Garrett yanks the ladder up with a swift crack and Kate clambers in close. Together, they all crowd in close and hurl their gazes to the jungle floor, hearts standing still, eyes riveted through the tree canopy as the floodlights probe the bushes below, illuminating the palm fronds a blazing green from below, as the tanks roll on through searching… _and Jesus Christ, they're close enough to hear static from the Jeeps radio which carry the damn soldiers!_

They wait in agony, frozen, so close to capture… when the floodlight strobes up through the branches, Kate's inside contract so tight she feels like she's going into shock, that she can't move a muscle… but she is used to that feeling, she has weathered it before. Hiding in ditches as patrol cars slinked past, stealing by armed guards in hospitals, holding up the bank with Jason – it came easier then. Now, with this implant draining her precious last reserves of strength, she feels the fear seeping down through every fibre in her body like a freezing wave, and feels Dharma frantically picking through her mind,

_Where are you Katherine, where ARE YOU –_

Trying to force her into her Blue room, trying to force her so far into the recesses of her mind that she will cease to function, make a fatal mistake, _slip up –_

_You can't do this, you can't run forever, we'll always catch up with you –_

But suddenly she feels a strong squeeze on her hand and the world flares back into focus. She hadn't even realized she was receding, that Dharma had been winning until she feels the sting of the hail again and looks up to see Sawyer staring down at her in raw shock.

"_They've gone." _He mutters hoarsely, and Kate hears it, she hears the tanks have moved on, and now there is only the cry of crickets, the rasp of all their breath on the wind. Finally, Sawyer pushes himself back through the darkness, feeling for his way. Kate kneels besides him as his back cracks against the rough trunk, and he tears suspicious glances about, trying to get his bearings. This place looks another world away from the Island he had once known, and the hail falls so hard it sounds like two skeletons dancing the damn conga on a tin roof… and slowly, as his eyes adjust to the gloom, he is slowly rendered speechless.

Weathered wooden rope bridges glitter under the assault of hail, towering through the treetops and winding away into the darkness. Sawyer feels like he's just stepped through the damn looking glass and is half expecting to look up and see the Cheshire Cat beaming his scrawny ass off at them from the face of the moon. He gives himself a mental slap and reminds himself it's the middle of the damn day.

"_We made it." _Garrett breathes shakily, and Sawyer can just make him out through the gloom.

"Be that as it may," He sighs, "You seem to be forgetting the fact that our little boat of dreams is sailing into port tonight, and we're stuck up a goddamn coconut tree!"

Garrett is testing the creaking rope bridge that leads into the mists from their platform and nods. "Seems like it's still stable. Come on! Lets get moving."

Sawyer shakes his head in disbelief as Garrett merrily wades across, legs bowed cautiously like he's got a damn pole up his ass. He rolls his eyes as Kate looks to him alertly. "We just have to lay low until tonight." She says resolutely, and Sawyer shoots her an incredulous look at the unnatural darkness surrounding them. She rolls her eyes. "Okay smartass, the_ real _night Don't make this any harder then it already is."

"Far be it from me to cause _problems_ sweet cheeks -- " Sawyer rolls his eyes towards Garrett's bright orange parka as he jumps up and down on the rope bridge like an eager five year old, giggling excitedly. "But I think when we let Tintin outta his underwater box somebody forgot to tell him we were supposed to be keeping things _quiet_."

Biting back a smile, Kate helps him up and they tentatively make their way towards the rope bridge. As they make their way along treetop bridges in the strange twilight, she feels like everything has speeded up somehow, like whatever path they are on now is rushing away beneath their feet, unstoppably. And when they finally make it through the unstable bridge network, Kate nearly rams straight into Sawyer's back as he stops with a start. Her heart begins to pound, adrenaline rising again as she alertly looks past him into the gloom… and her jaw drops.

This walkway ends at a massive group of palms up ahead, where a gleaming silver hatchway has been gouged straight into their towering trunks. Nearly hidden where the branches and leaves have grown around the alien intrusion, it is truly breathtaking. As they pad onto the rickety platform balcony which leads into the Hatch, finally sheltered from the hail, Kate looks about in amazement. "Gives a whole new meaning to living with nature, huh?" She breathes, and Sawyer mutters,

"Damn place gives me the creeps. Trees are fer makin' houses outta, not makin' houses _in_. I ain't no _squirrel_ --"

"But you're so _cute_ when your mad."

"Just caus you get off on climbing trees monkey girl, don't mean I fancy _living_ in one!"

"At least it's safe!" Garrett grins eagerly, pushing his lank hair from his eyes excitedly. Sawyer rolls his eyes and dumps his backpack --

Suddenly the rotting boards beneath him give way and he lunges backwards instinctively -- just before the boards break and hurtle into the blackness below.

Cursing a blue streak and jerking a vindicated look back at Garrett and Kate who return his gaze in astonishment, he hisses at Garrett, "Well butter my butt and call me a biscuit! You _weren't_ kidding." Sawyer vents sarcastically, "Caus we're safe as _houses _up here!"

Kate slumps her shoulders and glares at him as she turns to help Garrett roll back the hatch Door. She wipes the muck off the Dharma symbol emblazoned on the metal to reveal yet another sign, this one reading _The Bolt. _

"What does the Bolt stand for?" She asks as she strains with Garrett and the wheel on the hatch front grinds, slowly turning.

"Heaven," Garrett huffs, and Sawyer laughs out loud.

"I'm running with the flipside on that."

* * *

Jack has already hidden from the tanks as they passed maybe an hour earlier, maybe more. Time is meaningless now, ever since Dharma blacked out the world by swiping the sun from the sky. Jack had jumped into the freezing waterfall and dove under as the tanks passed him by, holding his breath in the murky depths. He had hidden behind the waterfall for a time, and now he has worked his way back through the hail along the rock face around to the start again, where he watches Kate and Sawyer continually jump from the falls, hail hitting water like coins on glass, endlessly. 

When he hears footsteps behind him, he ignores them, refusing to rise to more of Dharma's bait. If he has to be subjected to this, the only way he can bear it is by watching Kate, feeling that somehow, he is near her. He can't reach her, touch her, talk to her, but she is still here, and he can't leave until she does. He won't leave her behind again…

In the crazed twilight, Jack gazes up as a shadowy form detaches from the black mass of the perilous jungle… and his insides clench as Alex steps into the glade, shivering uncontrollably, face red from crying.

"Where have you _been_…" Her voice threatens tears, husky with fear and Jack can't answer, can't even look at her as she stands over him, arms clenched about herself in a futile attempt at protection against the stinging hail, "You _left_ me again, Jack…"

"Got lost." He mutters, staring out across the water, knowing Sawyer can't really be chasing Kate through the depths because Alex would have noticed. The sheer realisation hits him like a sledgehammer to the guts that he really has lost it, he is really losing his mind. She kneels by him, shivering uncontrollably and without even thinking, he shrugs out of his coat and wraps it about her shoulders. "Couldn't find my way back. But it doesn't matter, Alex. Nothing's real anymore."

She looks up with wide eyes, and grasps his grizzled jaw firmly, rooting his flickering eyes with her own fraught gaze. He meets her eyes finally and sees the pain there, the hopeless pain. Then she closes her eyes and her mouth finds his, lips numb through with cold, but so sweet, so normal, and she kisses him passionately.

When they part with a gasp, shivering with desire as well as the cold now, she wraps her arms around his neck. "Did that feel real?"

He meets her gaze desperately, trying to piece together words enough to make her see, make her understand how everything is irrevocably falling apart, "I put my father to _rest_ last night. For the last time, I made my peace with him and it felt good, it felt like everything I had ever wanted from him in my life, everything he denied me was finally given, like he understood me. Like he accepted me…" And his eyes cloud with exhaustion, glitter in the darkness with tears he can't shed as he grows choked, "But how do I know it was _real_ Alex? If it even meant anything?"

"Did it mean something to you? Did it _feel_ real, Jack --?"

"Just because it felt real, doesn't mean it was… I've never said any of those things to him. I didn't think I _could_ --"

"Things change, Jack." Alex smiles softly, "Your history's not your destiny. People grow, people get stronger… _people_ _change."_

"You really believe that…?" He says, and now he won't meet her eyes.

"Yes." She says, moving in closer but he pulls away suddenly like her touch burns him. She looks anxious, her hands twist miserably as he stands jerkily like he can't be near her right now. She finds her feet dazedly, so cold, and pins him with a hurt gaze as he moves away from her…

"Was it really that bad?" She calls sadly, "Last night… was… was I really that bad?"

Jack turns, desperately trying to keep the cold fire from his eyes. "When were you gonna tell me?"

"What, tell you _what?"_ Alex is getting worried, folds her arms tightly as Jack stalks up,

"I _saw_ it, Alex. You don't have to lie anymore."

"I don't understand! Jack, _what_ --"

"_The bump Alex, _the bump behind your ear. You have one just like me. Just like Kate and Sawyer. Why didn't you tell me Alex!"

Her eyes burst open wide, like he has just slapped her hard across the face. The blood rushes to her cheeks blooming them crimson, and her hand claps her head protectively, as though trying to shield herself from the truth of his words.

But she doesn't answer him. And she doesn't deny it is true… and even through the darkness which has befallen the world now, through the stinging hail and the terrible hallucinations, Jack understands what is going on here. It is like somebody has just turned a light on in the middle of this dark world, like everything is finally coming together…

"_You_ were the experiment Garrett was talking about, weren't you…?" His accusations are soft statements. "The one who used the brick wall to block Dharma out."

He is shaking his head in disbelief as this knot of confusion slowly unravels and Alex looks to the floor miserably. But although the pieces of this macabre puzzle are fitting together, doesn't mean they make anymore sense…

"Why would they let you live?" He breathes in confusion, "What I don't get Alex, is if they knew you had the power to block them, to stop all this… why didn't they kill you? Why didn't they kill _us_ when they had the chance?"

She meets his gaze, shaking her head. Her throat works, mouth quivers around words which she just can't say, protests, denials, explanations maybe… but something about her gaze suddenly chills Jack. Deeper than this unnatural cold which has frozen over their Island paradise, deeper than the hail and the wind can ever reach. Because he knows the look in her eyes now. _Recognises it. _

_It is resignation._

"Unless they let us go." He breathes, barely able to process these thoughts they're coming so fast, "Unless you never helped us at all… unless your one of _them_ –" And barely a whisper, he finishes… _"And this is a trap."_

* * *

**PLEASE REVIEW ME! IT ONLY TAKES A SECOND : )**


	19. Not long for this world

**Chapter 19**

**Not long for this world**

The inside of The Bolt hatchway is derelict and smells like something died. Sawyer hated it instantly, and only allowed himself to be coerced inside by Kate to escape that damn hail which was coming down so hard he reckoned it'd knock him out if he stayed outside much longer. So after checking through the small rooms and chasing out the last few belligerent residents (a family of brightly coloured birds and a mean looking tree frog) he made a great show of his disdain by sitting suspiciously on one of the mangled couches and glaring about as Kate excitedly went on a scavenger hunt through the cupboards in the kitchen like a kid at Christmas. Now, he is trying to ignore Kate as she hoards a stack of canned (probably rotten) food, trying to decide what to make for dinner. She looks to Sawyer hopefully.

"Canned asparagus, beetroot, and peaches. Any suggestions?"

"Takeout?"

She rolls her eyes and gestures to the back rooms with the beam of a flashlight she'd found, "If your not gonna help, why don't you loot the rest of the rooms? I saw some bedrolls back there, you could bring 'em through."

"Honey, unless there's a bar or a strip joint back there, I ain't budgin'."

Garrett scurries in with an armful of wet kindling and dumps it on the floor to Kate's discouragement, "No electrics?"

"Not so much as a watt running through this place." Garrett looks about at the dim chambers in awe, "So I guess we'll have to improvise huh?" He sounds almost excited at the prospect, and Kate wonders if he's gotten this desperate run across the island mistaken for a camping trip.

"No running water either." Kate sighs, turning the rusty taps, and then she realises what Garret said. "You're gonna start a fire inside a _tree_..!"

Garrett squeals his reedy giggle, "Not in here! Outside, we're sheltered from the worst of the hail. It'll be fine!"

"It's three thirty," Kate calls after him, still unsettled by the absolute blackness outside, "When's the ship coming?"

"Probably midnight to early morning," Garrett calls back cheerfully, probably already too immersed in the adventures of lighting a fire, "So if you guys wanna rest, you go right ahead. Something tells me we're gonna need it…!"

Garrett passes out the main blast door and into the hissing darkness, and Kate turns to Sawyer meaning to get him to go help Garrett, to see he is fast asleep. She shakes her head, thinking at first that he's faking it to get out of pulling his weight, and moves closer. But when she kneels next to him, she sees he is indeed dead to the world. In sleep his face loses that hardened set, the stubborn cast, and he looks vulnerable, somehow. It strikes her suddenly that she had grown to know the lines and grooves of that face well over the past months, but in the past days she has grown to know them by heart.

Kate has never needed looking after, always prided herself on her ability to take care of herself, but somehow, he had looked after her without her ever realizing it. Maybe he didn't even realize it himself. But he had been the one who'd sprung her from her cell, dragged her into the airway back down in The Staff when she was shot, and he was the one that when times were at their worse, could keep her from receding into her Blue Room armed with only a wisecrack or a twinkle in his eye.

She sees the pressure is taking its toll now, and realises suddenly she has forgotten to make sure he is changing the dressings on his leg and hand. She could kick herself. That was the kind of thing that would come back to haunt them, that kind of stupid oversight could be the difference between getting off this rock for good or coming down with an infection and remaining here forever, alongside Boone and Shannon, Ana-Lucia and Libby, never to leave.

Kate's instinctive reaction is to do something to remedy this, and she needs to keep moving, keep setting her mind tasks so she doesn't have to think about what they will be facing, the sheer impossible odds of them making it _out_ of here –

She cuts that train of thought dead, deciding to go get some snow she can melt, so they can clean their wounds. The antibiotics they pillaged from The Door are running low, and she means to turn this place upside down to find more. Hoping Sawyer wouldn't go falling through any more floors before she gets back, she covers him with a rough blanket and shoulders her backpack. Picking up a metal bucket she had grabbed from the kitchen, she exits the thick blast doors and passes Garrett, who merrily rubs two sticks together in a futile but passionate attempt to make fire.

"I never was in the boy scouts." He giggles nervously, "But boy, I always wanted to be! Those neckties were so cute. And the badges! All different coloured enamels, I always wanted the badges." He grins excitedly, rubbing the sticks hard, and Kate hasn't got the heart to mention the box of matches in the pantry. "Where you goin'?"

"Gonna get snow. Clean up Sawyer a little." She says softly.

"You'll need somethin' a little stronger than snow, Kate!" Garrett whispers, but Kate notices how the scientists eyes cloud with genuine worry, and suddenly she remembers that he shouldn't be here at all. They've gotten him mixed up in this mess, put his life on the line, and he's responded by saving her life, leading them to fleeting safety, hailing their rescue, building them a _fire. _Suddenly she is overwhelmingly grateful for him, for everything he has done for them.

"Thank you."

Garrett actually glances about to make sure she's talking to him. "Excuse me!"

"Thanks for the help back at the beach." Then, feeling as though she's given a little too much of herself away, she blushes, looking outwards into the darkness. Garrett shifts, uncomfortable with the attention and giggles nervously.

"That's okay. Hell, I know it cut our friend in there right up." He gestures into The Bolt, "I thought he was gonna take a swing at me…!"

"Sawyer's got…issues." She says, and suddenly wonders when she became the authority on the matter. Shrugging, she starts away, but Garrett whispers,

"He said something to me. On the beach, when we didn't know if you'd run or not."

Kate turns, stomach taking a nose dive, blood beginning to race. Garrett looks uncertain, then forces himself to say, "He told me if you two were an item, you'd be a nuke. Wipe out yourselves, and everybody else all around you."

Kate keeps her face composed, but inside she feels like Garrett has just reached deep down and stabbed her. She nods dully, the sting of rejection lining her throat, but before she can leave Garrett finishes, "But you know what? You're good people. I had my doubts when you held a gun to my head, but hey, what's past is past. I talked to him, back at The Door? And I think he's got problems. Goodness, I _know _he's got problems. But I think somewhere in there, he's a good man. He's just lost his way."

Kate can't answer. Doesn't know how to, and doesn't think she could if she did. Garrett takes this like he has offended her, and blushes crimson, awkwardly continuing to rub the sticks. "I'm sorry. I just wanted to say that I think you wouldn't be so bad together, is all."

Leaving Garrett busily making a fire and setting up house, she takes her handgun from her pack, and gripping the pail between her teeth, stealthily moves across the first rope bridge, the steady pop of the hail masking most of her noise. There's no lights, no tanks… and as she stares outwards over the tree canopy at the beach, she can see the fires of their old camp. . She burns to see everyone again, prays that Dharma have not harmed them. Sadness rushes up to greet her at this sight – it is like seeing home, but being unable to reach it, and knowing by the time she makes it back to those huts and lean-to's, that everyone will be gone. There will be no more waking in the sand to blistering days and pure blue sea, no more playing cards with Charlie and Hurley, no more playing with Aaron and helping Jack –

_Jack, where are you? _

* * *

Jack looks to Alex in shock. He shakes her, "What's going on? How the hell did we make a clean run through that place without getting found? _Why was it so easy --"_

Limp like a rag-doll in his arms, hair plastered to her head, Alex whispers in disbelief, _"Easy --!"_

"There were no_ Guards _Alex!" Jack cries plaintively, "And when there were, it seemed they didn't try nearly hard enough to _find us_ if we're as important to them as you say." And things are occurring to him now in rapid fire, terrible realisations as everything slips into place, "And you _knew_ that we'd be okay, when we went up in the airway, stepped into God knows what gas, you _knew_ we'd be fine, _because you'd planned it from the start --!" _

Alex only stares up at him in horror, blue eyes splayed wide, not wanting to hear this, not wanting to be doing this… and Jack knows its true, with a terrible lurch in his heart he knows it, can see it in her face. His voice trembles, "Jesus, you're not even gonna _deny_ it are you…!"

"Jack…" She whispers, eyes pleading for mercy, but Jack can't give it. Can't even look at her. Roughly he drops his hands from her and she gasp, dropping back as though she expects him to hit her… but he only looks to her in unbelievable hurt and betrayal.

"My hat goes off to you. You really…" He begins laughing so hard tears spring into his eyes, "You really had me going there. I can't believe I actually thought… _you_ would help us. You've been conditioned by them since you were an infant Alex. You don't know your own mind, because you never _had_ one to begin with --"

Suddenly, Alex changes. Through the blankets of hail and darkness, Jack doesn't need to see it, because he can _feel _it. The air suddenly seems charged, full of hatred and resentment, and the implant in his head is burning, it's never been this bad before –

_You always were one hell of a failure, Jack. You were never the son I should have had --_

He knows this is Dharma, as cramps of pain rip through his skull and he grips his head crying out in pain, he knows this is their final push, they're throwing everything they've got at him – and as his vision blurs, trebles, he hears a metallic popping, and as he looks up through the hail to see glistening steel, he finally realises he is cornered.

Alex aims her Beretta at him through the sheets of hail, a freezing look clamping her face tight… but Jack doesn't back away.

"Is this them telling you to kill me now Alex?" He breathes in disbelief, "Because I found out your plan?"

He crosses the distance between them in two motions, legs wired stiff with the fear, but he stares down at her resolutely – as the gun presses into his chest. She looks up at him in horror as he gets in close... "Y'know what? Maybe its not too late." He whispers. "I don't think it is. I know they're pumping your head full of shit Alex, I know they're telling you its right, but it's not. It never is. _And I think you know that…"_

Alex stares up at him…

"And I think you're stronger than them. I think you always were. And I think you could stop this if you _tried_…"

She closes her eyes… and he knows he is winning her over, can feel the tension slipping from her, prays that she still has the strength left to fight Dharma after all these years… when suddenly he remembers, could kick himself for not telling her sooner about _Danielle_. Maybe she is the key in all this.

"Let me take you home…" He reasons, eyes burning with desperate concern for this kid, this incredibly fucked up kid, "Let me take you to your mom_. She misses you…"_

Her breath is ragged against his face, and her gaze flies to him in shock. "My mom's still alive…?"

"I'll take you to her." Jack smiles down to her, taking his time with his words, knowing each one meant the difference between tipping the scales towards life or death, "But you have to fight them Alex. You don't wanna do this. I _know_ you. Your history is _not_ your destiny, we can all change Alex. You _said_ that to me, and I _believe_ _you_ -"

She clenches her eyes shut tightly against the cold, against Dharma, against the voices which he knows will be tearing apart her head --

"_I believe in you."_ Jack whispers softly.

"Jack…" Alex murmurs thickly…

"Yes…?"

Her eyes fly open and she says, _"You shouldn't." _

* * *

As Kate clambers to the crest of a small rise, gathering snow from the bushes, she glances out across the vast jungle basin below – she grips her stomach, suddenly feeling sick… and thinks that the deafening crack which tears through the jungle is the thunder returning. But when a fiery pain rips through her gut, like she has been run through, she gasps in pain – and a terrible scream rips through the trees.

Jerking awake with a shout like her has just been shot in the gut, Sawyer jacknifes up from the sofa in horror, clutching his stomach feeling that somehow everything has just gone badly wrong, _and the only thing that runs through his head is _

_Where's Kate!_

"Sawyer?" Garrett calls uncertainly as Sawyer grabs his jacket and ploughs out past him.

"_Where's Kate?"_ He demands urgently.

"Gone to – to find some snow!" He stutters, and shaking his head in fury, Sawyer careens towards the rope bridge --

* * *

As Jack slumps to the mud, pain tearing through his gut in sickening waves he goes into a state of shock. This can't be happening. This isn't how this was supposed to end – the girl whom he made love to last night wasn't supposed to shoot him in cold blood the next day, not after everything he'd been through to get this far,not without saying goodbye to his friends, _to_ _Kate --_

_It wasn't supposed to be thisway -- !_

As he hits the sludge, through all this madness and pain, the doctor ingrained in him is already making his fated diagnosis,

_Gut shot, the worst kind, if you don't get some kind of compression on it right now you'll go into shock_

Suddenly the world tilts – and as he cracks open his eyes, he sees Alex above him, cradling him in her arms.

"All that talk about change…" He whispers, the taste of blood on his lips coppery and choking, "You don't know the meaning of the word…"

"Nobody changes Jack." She whispers, "You can't honestly have believed those pretty lies? But for what it's worth, I never got physically intimate with a specimen before. Especially a runner."

As the world spins away from him, he fights to hold onto his consciousness, "You've… _you've done this before…!"_

"All specimens run." She says coolly, as though discussing the news, "It's the nature of the beast. Its _instinct,_ and its all part of the experiment. How far can they run? How much can they take? And when the experiment is through, it's my job to bring them home… or finish them."

He stares up at her, eyes filling with tears. "_Instinct_…! You… you wanna talk to me about instinct…_who are you?"_ He chokes, and now he can't get his breath, it won't come, and everything is bleaching at the edges, _"Who are you really…?"_

"I'm an Agent, Jack." She smiles down through the darkness, "The most dangerous kind. People always underestimate the kid, always write me off. You made it so easy, and you never even questioned me." She smiles, looking down at him with a self satisfied smirk which he hates, as she finishes,

"_I'm Agent Orange."_

* * *

As the wind shrieks through the jungle like a runaway steam train gone off the tracks, Sawyer hurls himself through the battering branches, beyond the pain of his leg and hand, beyond all rational thought and sense, just drawing on everything he's got, digging down deep because he knows something has happened, something terrible, _and he's terrified its Kate –_

Suddenly a form barrels into him and they fly backwards, pounding down in a wild spray of mud, and as he looks up, Kate scuttles back, gun aimed at him and the relief that burns through him nearly makes him pass out. Suddenly they are intertwined, hands racing over one another, checking for injuries as their questions sear breathlessly through the hail,

"_Are you okay?" _Sawyer breathes jaggedly, _"What happened!"_

"_I heard a gunshot --" _Kate cries, _"I thought – I thought you got hurt – Sawyer I felt it!"_

Their eyes lock, and the realisation dawns, and together, they gasp –

"_Jack --"_

Suddenly footsteps through the jungle behind them, and they both spin – Kate hikes up her gun, aiming into the darkness – as Alex comes crashing into the glade through the long whipping grasses.

"Alex!" Sawyer cries in relief, so pleased that the damn girl hadn't gotten herself killed, and he goes to move towards her but Kate yells,

"_Sawyer wait!"_ He spins to see Kate is aiming her weapon at Alex and his blood runs cold. What the hell is happening here!

"Kate what are you _doing!"_

"_Where's Jack?"_ She spits coldly at Alex, voice booming through the rain, the stinging rain which has returned with brute tidal wave force --

"Hold on!" Alex splays her hands imploringly, "Wait – I can _explain_ --"

But Kate thumbs off the safety and Alex tears an urgent look to Sawyer, calls for him desperately. And in those moments, his head explodes with lust. His implant burns as the voices scream at him to intersect Kate's line of fire, grab Alex and feel the warmth of her against him, thrust his mouth against hers and _grind her into the mud –_

"Kate --" He turns to Kate dazedly and he doesn't know her in the darkness, she is out of his reach, "Just calm _down_, we don't know anything _– Kate!"_

"_Did you kill him?"_ Kate's eyes blaze into Alex, her voice hard as stone as she fights to keep the wrathful tremble from it, _"Did you kill Jack?" _

And to Sawyers amazement Alex throws her head back and _laughs_. A deep throated belly laugh which borders on the lunatic, which sends chills up his spine and brings gooseflesh to his arms.

"Are you out of your _mind!"_ Alex cries at Kate, unable to stop laughing, _she_ _is reaching hysteria – _Sawyer desperately tries to take control, advances on Kate, his mud caked arms outstretched like a blind man through the pouring rain and darkness,

"Kate,drop the gun. Listen to me now_, it's not worth it --"_ He wishes he could put into words the black fear which is rising through him, threatening to consume him – the same black fear which had swallowed him whole when he was six and beneath the bed, as when he was thirty six and standing before Duckett's body with that smoking gun in his hand, the terrible fear _which he can't let himself give into now –_

"Once you do it, you can't take it back." He calls desolately, "It eats you up inside, it turns everything bad and _I don't want that for you --" _

Kate stares at him in shock, the impact of his words seeping through, when the voices whir about her dangerously. Her head cramps and the implant heats up, the voices stab at her

_No more takesy backsey's Katie! _

To his shock, Sawyer sees Kate isn't hearing him and no matter how he tries to stop it, his voice rises plaintively, _"Kate, she's our friend!"_

"_NO Sawyer!" _Kate cries furiously, and she is shivering wildly with such anger Sawyer has never seen before, it consumes her,

_"NO,_ _I know_, I know what she _did, I can feel it --!"_ And she turns back to Alex as furious tears drop down her cheeks, "_Admit it! _Do the one decent thing in your life _and admit what you did!"_

Alex looks to them in terrible sorrow… then suddenly, something parts in her. It's like a veil of darkness has been lifted from her eyes, her face smoothes, and she sucks in a startled gasp, like she has come back to herself somehow, like she has finally broken the spell Dharma have held her in for so long –

Daylight pours through the world as the illusion of darkness rolls away, _the spell broken – _

The rain cuts out like somebody turned off a faucet –

Kate and Sawyer jump, staring upwards at the bright blue skyin shock – but Alex stares forth resolutely, and her face is suddenly childlike once more, suddenly innocent again, suddenly pure – and shocked.

"_I killed him…" _She whispers brokenly.

And in the moment which Kate's attention is diverted, all hell breaks loose.

A bright orange parka bursts into the clearing by Sawyer's left –

"_Guys, I started the fire!"_

Sawyer spins to see Garrett stumbling through the mud into the sunshine, staring at them in eager surprise which falls to betrayed horror –

Because Alex has drawn her gun up in a silver flash aimed straight at Sawyer's head –

The final look which passes between Sawyer and Garrett is brief, as Garrett tackles Sawyer, throwing him out of the Alex's line of fire –

Gunfire roars _– a heady scream rises –_

As Sawyer and Garrett pound to the ground Kate spins, arm locking into place as the sunlight blinds her, everything narrowing right down as her gun rises, finds Alex's chest, stained with blood, _stained_ _with_ _Jack's blood --_

_And she pulls the trigger. _

* * *

**PLEASE REVIEW ME FOLKS! IT'S MUCH APPRECIATED**

_Thanks so much to everyone who is reviewing regularly, you all rock, and this is dedicated to you : )_


	20. Late Night Partner

**Chapter 20**

**Late night partner**

Kate pushes her way blindly through the nearby undergrowth, and makes it just in time before she is violently sick. The world spins as she finally allows herself to release her death grip on the gun, woozily dropping to her knees, and the thought which plagues her is _how did things come this far, how did this happen…_

_You killed her Kate_

And hidden in the long grasses, she surrenders to the whispery sobs which break out of her against all of her control, leaving her breathless. It is only when the distant thunder of heavy machinery, _tanks, _rises again that she pulls herself together, locks her emotions deep down and gives herself a rough mental shake.

_I did what I had to do._

* * *

"It's not a bad hit," Sawyer rationalizes breathlessly, hating how Garrett is looking at him, like he knows it's a lie, like he knows its all over, "It looks like a lot of blood son, but you'd be surprised!" Sawyer rips a chunk of the scientists coat and desperately tries to mop up the blood with shaking gestures_, and holy shit it's a throat hit, a throat hit and a stomach hit –_ "Once we get you on that boat there'll be a doctor – stitch you up good an' proper boy, you hearing me?" 

Garrett bats at Sawyers frantic hands lethargically, and when Sawyer looks up and forces himself to meet the dying mans gaze, he is suddenly in that drenched alleyway again, icy rain soaking through his shirt, freezing him forevermore, and Duckett is staring up, eyes shining with terrible pity, terrible sorrow.

_Tell Hibbs I would have paid_

Sawyer has paid, and he'll never stop. He has spent every waking day with his mind wrapped in an endless re-run of those moments. Duckett haunts his dreams, with his glazed gaze and flower of blood which has shredded his shirt, running pink in the lousy rain. All of it rushes forth in a glut of horrific memories, along with all the bitter regrets he shouldered, all the worthless apologies which stung his throat, locking it tight.

As his mind finally turns against him in this deathly glade, Sawyer knows no act of goodness will ever make up for what he did. There is no way he will ever be worthy of redemption from these demons which haunt him, not now. Not when he has been given a taste, glimpsed liberation in all its beauty, and fucked it up, like he fucks everything up. After all these dark years, after all the terrible things he has done, the lies, the cons, the women, after he has come so far, _he can't stand it --_

"Don't you dare quit --" He chokes furiously, _"Don't you fucking quit on me! I need you._ _I need you here --!" _He grips Garrett's rain slicked hand, the coldness which has already stolen through him ramming all the hairs on Sawyers arms up and forcing a lurch in his chest.

Garrett can't speak. Garrett is past that. But Lord in Heaven on high, he's trying to.

Sawyer leans in close, searing tears breaking down his cold face to stare, for the second time in his life into a dying mans eyes, a man whose very life is bleeding away in his arms. "Don't do it." He whispers hoarsely, "Don't leave me behind."

"_Let it go Sawyer."_ Tears course down Garrett's filthy temples leaving white tracks, and his voice is awful, hoarse and broken, _"Please_… you know what you have to do."

Sawyer jacknifes away, unable to be hear this, unable to look anymore. He feels his mind threatening to shatter into a million irretrievable pieces – because he _knows_, he can fucking _hear_ dead Dr Quinn preaching from his puffy cloud down at him, telling him Garrett is a lost cause, he needs to end it, _and he needs to end it quick –_

_A shot to the head_

But Sawyer knows if he has to pull the trigger again, end this mans life the same miserable way he ended another's so long ago, it will be the end of him. There will be no salvation, he will never change. This act will seal his fate.

"We're gonna get _rescued!"_ He yells never feeling more a fraud, that this is a hopeless travesty, but he needs to hear it, needs to _believe_ it so bad, "You _told_ me that! We're gonna get _outta_ here!"

But Garrett is coughing now, coughing up blood which stains that fucking ridiculous orange parka deepest crimson, and he is shaking his head, unable to speak anymore, but that _fucking logic is still in his eyes --_

_You know what you have to do_

And kissing goodbye to redemption, Sawyer's heart breaks as he lifts the gun.

* * *

The shadows are returning to the world. Dazedly Kate glances to her watch -- _eight o'clock…_ and tanks are nearing again, circling like vultures. But the boat should be here, it should be here soon… 

_Garrett!_

A second gunshot rings out and she jumps, heart skittering madly. When she pushes her way out of the bushes an unknown length of time later, she notices things in fragments with a cool detachment, feeling far removed from this hellish reality.

Tufts of black hair protruding from the long waving grasses. The wind rustles and whispers treacherously. A snatch of orange parka pokes out from the undergrowth. The shot had hit Garrett so hard that he had been thrown out of one of his shoes, and Kate remembers him running up the rainy beach, chasing them in the surf.

Sawyer is slumped on a rotting log. He has his back to her, facing into the bushes… and the grind of the tanks is growing agonizingly close. Her instincts scream at her to bolt, flee into the bushes back to the relative safety of The Bolt – but her feet won't budge. She knows she has to rouse Sawyer, get him _moving_ –

_But they're dead! _Her mind screams, _Jack, Alex, Garrett – you're the last two left!_

"Sawyer…" She whispers through a dry mouth, as her survival instincts kick in. Venting her nervous energy she reloads her gun shakily, dropping the spent cartridge to the mud, and he doesn't respond. But the blood is pumping through her veins now, as her field of vision narrows right down. This is the clandestine calm which had taken hold of her when she'd hopped on her motorcycle and burned away from the carcass of her childhood home, the covert coolness which had guided one foot in front of the other, ensured she could meet her mothers gaze as she handed her the insurance papers and a key to a better life.

But as she nears Sawyer, her heart flutters wildly like a dying bird in her chest as she sees what he is riveted on… in his weathered hands, he grips a tattered letter, one she thought he must have lost on the raft, because she hasn't seen it since he tore it away from her on the beach what seems like a lifetime ago. She should have known better. Seeing it here in this shadowy clearing knocks her for six, she doesn't understand why he should be staring at it in such utter hopelessness, with such a look of abject failure on his face…

"What did you do?"

"Get the hell away from me." He breathes.

"Why…" She can barely catch her breath, as she sees his green shirt stained with blood, _"Why! _We could have _saved_ him --!"

His eyes spear her through the growing darkness with such venom that it stabs her deep inside, venom mixed with an incredible sorrow. _"Nobody gets saved, Kate."_

The squeal of a tree splitting beneath the weight of a heavy tank rips through the air close by, and Kate turns to him with a cold fire searing from her. _"Come on.--"_

"It doesn't matter anymore." He mutters, unable to meet her eyes - and with a terrible lurch she realizes his voice is raw with tears.

"We have to go -" She demands in growing panic, "They could come through here at any moment – they could catch us!"

"So run." He retorts emptily, "I ain't stopping you."

"_Get up --"_ Her breath hitches as that cold resolution freezes over all pain and feeling so she can focus, and she crouches low before him, uncaring if she hurts him, just knowing she has to _snap him out of this, _"Sawyer I don't wanna leave him here but they're coming, so we can't stay -- Garrett died so we could get away, and now you wanna get caught!"

But to her outraged frustration he won't meet her eyes and she shakes him hard, hating how her voice is rising, laced with the deep-seated hysteria which is festering inside her, "Come on! Sawyer, I can't _be_ here anymore, _I can't_ – we can't let them catch us, _Sawyer I have to get away --"_

Suddenly he shoves her. _Hard. _She is flat on her ass and staring up at him in shock as he thrums with barely restrained rage, and stalks towards the bushes. "You're damn right you gotta get away. _Go on." _

She stares up at him uncomprehending, unable to process this at all as she jumps up after him, _"What! _Sawyer, I pulled the trigger!" Furiously she shoves him back, unable to help herself, "It was _me_ who killed her, it's on _me, _not _you_ _--!"_

"_You think so huh?"_ His turns, face suddenly fills with such hatred, such bitter malice that it stops her heart a moment. She can't stop herself in time, and suddenly she is staring right up into those disintegrating ocean blue eyes, "This was my _chance_. This was supposed to _save_ me Kate! I was supposed to look _after_ him, I promised him I would, I _promised_ him no bullet'd touch him _and I couldn't save him --" _

He storms into the woods, away from the oncoming tanks and she follows as he continues, words building up desolate steam,"I'm a monster Kate, I'm _cursed_, and you wanna run away? Well maybe you should – _maybe I'm telling you to –"_

He catches the rope ladder in his hands and as he shimmies up a couple of rungs he turns down to her, "Damn it I'm fucking _begging_ you. _Just please_… get to the beach. Get away." His eyes flash miserably, _"Run."_

She watches with wide eyes as he clambers up the rope ladder.

* * *

He doesn't stop until he's inside the hatch and there's nowhere else to go. As he staggers onto the battered platform in front of The Bolt hatch, his heart takes a painful dive – the fire is guttering. Garrett got it going, but it's nearly out now, heading into the ether with its maker. 

The godforsaken hatch is still every inch as foul as before, but this time there's a sick heat which pulses through the derelict rooms, bereft of the cold draughts and hail. There's no one to rattle through the cupboards, no one to check the electrics, keep the fire going or stop him falling through floors. He's all alone up here with a chip in his head and a fucking destroyed heart, and losing control, he overturns the table where Kate had started preparing dinner, back when things had been okay, back when he still had a chance.

Now, as he stands amidst the ruins of the hatch, he turns as floorboards creak to see Kate morph from the shadows in the doorway. And no matter how fucking grateful he is to see her, no matter how his heart flares painfully with the knowledge that she hadn't left him behind, it doesn't ease this pain. Not now.

She's looking to him unwaveringly, needing to hear reason, needing to hear everything will be okay… but he can't do it. Nothing he could say would be right. He could lie to her, but she'd see straight through it. That's the problem when you get to lying for a living – they are both such seasoned liars that they can see straight through them. And he can't even lie to himself right now, so he knows there's no hope in hell he can spin a lie profound enough that they'll both fall for.

"What the hell is wrong with you!" He breathes in disbelief, and his trusty defence mechanisms spring into action, "Stupid damn woman, what are you hanging around here for!"

"I'm not running." She clenches her jaw defiantly, and she crosses her arms across her chest in that fucking _infuriating_ way she does when she just ain't gonna back down on something, "And you wanna know why?"

"You lost your _mind_ --" He snarls wearily, but she still stands her ground.

"I _wanted_ to run. You'll never know how bad I wanted to, Sawyer. But the reason I stay, is because _you never let me. _You make me stay, you make me face things." She is staring at him like she hates him for it, like this is the greatest sin he has ever committed as she finishes, "You always have."

Sawyer wordlessly drops to a bedroll and turns to the wall, away from those accusing eyes and the jungle of mystery below. He doesn't deserve to be rescued, and whatever Dharma are cooking up for him will be his penance for Garrett, for Duckett, for everything he has done. He'll be damned if he's going to encourage her to stay. And if Kate is too damn stupid to get out of here while she still can, then that's her problem. He's through getting close to people.

* * *

There are many situations at which Kate is capable of practical, useful aid. She can track, deliver a baby in the wilderness, avert capture and most nights, she manages to sleep without dreaming, the only place where reality comes crashing down and she cannot hide from herself. But there are also situations Kate knows she cannot handle, situations which she is unprepared for and her stunted emotional capacities have left her ill-equipped to deal with. How to comfort Sawyer when he won't come anywhere near her, is one of them. Kate watches him and his silence is almost more than she can bear. 

So wordlessly, she sits beside him. She knows nothing she can ever say to him will convince him she will not leave him here, only knows that her actions over the next vital hours will be the only way she can prove herself to him… and prove that there is something out there for him, a reason to get off this godforsaken island…

And as she sits in the dark hatch, watching over him and awaiting their rescue, she realizes that he is wrong. People can change… right now, she desperately needs to believe that. He makes her want to change. He makes her want to be a better person. And her heart falls heavy with the terrible burden, the terrible weight of having taken someone's life. But Kate doesn't regret pulling the trigger, because if she had hesitated another second, Sawyer would have been shot. Alex would have killed him, as she had done with Jack and Garrett, in cold blood. And no matter how Sawyer had pleaded

_Once you do it, you can't take it back_

And no matter how she had felt incredible pity for the teenager whose mind Dharma had warped to their will, she had done what she had to do. It didn't make it any easier to stand herself for it,

_It eats you up inside, it turns everything bad and I don't want that for you --_

It doesn't make it any easier to stay afloat in the incredible ocean of loss which she is slowly sinking in… and just because she has killed before, doesn't make it any easier to justify her motives or quell the self loathing which rises up to greet her.

If Jack were here, he would hold her. Those calm grey eyes would steady her with their cool logic and he would have told her she was acting in self defence, Alex's death should not rest on her conscience. Suddenly hot tears burn in her eyes and her throat locks as the finality of it all hits her, that Jack is really gone. Her moral compass shattered when he died, along with all the salvation and hope which he had represented to her. Just as she fears Sawyer damns himself for not taking the bullet for Garrett, she wishes fervently that she had taken the bullet instead of Jack. But somehow, she always scrapes her way through these things unscathed, a hopeless contradiction, while the good around her die. First Tom, then Jack…

He should be here with them. She hates that she needs him, but she has never been so in need of someone to talk to in her life. Instead, she is sitting here in the dark, awaiting rescue alone, and Sawyer has rejected her. How can two people haunted by so many demons ever overcome them enough to find peace together? Can it ever happen?

Tiredly scraping her hair back her eyes fall on Sawyer's bulk next to her. The soft rise and fall of his chest ensure her he has finally found sleep, and something glints in the light, which he is gripping tightly in his worn hands. Gently, she pulls it from his grip, and something inside her snaps.

Garrett smiles goofily back at her, with his arm slung awkwardly around his wife, the love shining in his wide eyes so strong, like he can't believe his luck at this woman. It tears her up. Instead of returning home to his wife with her bowl haircut and cheerful flowered shirts, Garrett is resting in muddy bushes.

Kate longs to know the safety of that kind of unconditional love, a love so strong that it makes no judgements, asks nothing more than to be reciprocated. She looks to Sawyer as she furiously wipes her eyes, but he is just a shadow in this room. She knows she will never know that kind of love, doesn't deserve to after all she has done… but in the eleventh hour, when she rests alone at night, when Sawyer was far away in his lean-to up the beach and Jack was even further at the hatch, she would watch Sun and Jin enter their tent together, and her heart quietly ached for it.

* * *

Wind whistles through a broken pane, the clouds locked like a leaden blanket low in the wintry sky. James looks out the grimy window from his threadbare new digs which, _technically_, since its gotta damp mattress slung in the corner, he guesses must be his bedroom. He looks at the paint peeling from the walls, a pair of cockroaches scuttling through dust bunnies on the splintery floorboards, and he wonders if he's ever gonna strike it lucky with these damn foster families. Christ, he's only fifteen, and he should have learned to quit hoping a long time ago that some all American family was gonna take pity on his scrawny ass and invite him into their pure folds – Uncle Sam seemed to have hightailed it outta his life the night his parent's died… but hopes a hard thing to kill when it's the only thing worth a damn anymore. 

"Hell it ain't the Ritz," Jeremiah Low puffs a cloud of smoke from his stubby cigarette, "But we all git by jest dandy. Supper's at six. Dump yer stuff an' meet me on porch in five. There's tree's to be fellin' -- and _you_ sonny Jim, is gonna earn your keep."

James doesn't answer. He's a silent boy, nicknamed Silent Sam at school. Well, at his _old_ school. Ain't laid eyes on the damn place since they threw his ass out in the fall. Ever since his daddy done gone an shot his momma to hell and put the barrel in his own mouth, little Jimmy Ford was the brunt of every goddamn thing that went wrong in that shit hole school. His blood quietly boils as he thinks of it… getting hauled into the principals office for fighting in the gym when he'd been sitting alone in the bleachers, being beaten seven days from Sunday by a gang and having a teacher pass him by, the rising chant which dogged him everywhere he went,

_Jimmy Ford the freak of nature_

_Stoopid Jimmy we all hate ya! _

_Jimmy's ma got blown away_

_By his pa the other day_

_Jimmy Ford hid under the bed_

_As daddy blew off momma's head_

_And as they lay down and bled_

_It's stoopid Jimmy who should be dead_

Yeah, they were real _witty_. Changed the words sometimes, but the sentiment remained. He never gave a one of those fuckers an inch, never let them see how hearing those singsong verses fucked him up deep inside, pureeing his heart, but by God, his fists did enough talking for his mouth. He remembers the familiar feel of his stomach clenching into a tight fist, his rage burgeoning like cancer, rising black and bitter to wreak it's destruction --

So he had lost control. And he had paid the price. He doesn't remember what he did to the cocky shit who was the last to sing that song, only remembers coming back to himself to find a blanket around his shoulders, and his Foster mother Jana wringing her hands, eyes all bloodshot from crying, telling him to go pack, she'd failed him, he was moving again.

So James steps onto the porch five minutes later into a bracing Alaskan wind, breath steaming, cheeks tingling then going numb with the cold. Christ, it looks like the end of the world out here, a world away from Tennessee… just snowy fields and grey sky from here to forever, and briefly he looks to the snow. He has the childish urge to dive into the drifts, feel the powder chill soak through his clothes as he makes snow angels,

_Angels can illuminate the darkest paths Jimmy,_ his mother had once read him in a bedtime story, _Angels are the love that overcome hatred. _

And as his throat constricts at this never healing wound, this raw sorrow which makes his young heart shrivel away, he knows no Angel will ever have the power to help him overcome this hatred. He aches a deep, soul ache because his mother was wrong, no Angel could ever be that good, that pure. No Angel will save him. He feels that same fury rising, that same hopeless anger,

_Momma, I shoulda stopped you. I shoulda saved you --_

If only he was bigger, stronger, tougher, if only he hadn't been six and scared out of his mind and transfixed with horror. And now Jeremiah, the chain smoking wino heaves an axe in his direction which damn near takes his arm off –

"Pine to your left, boy." He hacks through a cloud of smoke, "Bring her down."

_Bring her down._

_Bring her down… _

Now that's something Sawyer _excels_ at.

* * *

He wakes with a yell and damn near has a cardiac when Kate yells in his face and jerks back away from him, spooked. For a moment he glares back at her, frantically fumbling his barriers back up through his haze of sleep, scared that in those moments, she had seen straight into him, naked and unprotected, and glimpsed the ghost of the dying dream in his eyes. 

"Are you okay?" Her hand is still resting in the groove of his neck, warm, it makes the blood rocket through his veins, as those green amber eyes sear into his with worry. In those moments, he burns for her. "You were saying a rhyme. It was horrible, Sawyer…"

_You'll bring her down Little Jimmy Ford, _those voices warn, _Angels only existed in the stupid mind of a brainless six year old who believed everything his momma fed him. Momma's dead and gone and Kate ain't no Angel, she ain't gonna SAVE you --_

But he looks up at her past the voices, through the afterimages of the dying dream and forces automatic dimples, a gruff laugh, a smile. But holy shit his chest is constricting tight, as he remembers Garrett, Jack, Alex, _and those bastard tears have followed him from dreamland into reality –_

"Get away from me Freckles --"

To his horror his voice hitches over her name. _Freckles. _He hears it and he hates how weak he sounds, how disgustingly weak. He tears his eyes away, awaiting her scorn, the usual banter. And if she does that, he swears to God, he'll forgive her anything. Just don't let her pick up on this fleeting weakness. _Don't let her win…_

When there is silence a moment, he tenses… then feels her hand tighten on his shoulder. This simple gesture, not marred by her fucking pity or sympathy kills him. He hates her suddenly for bringing him to this, that she has finally undone him --

He pushes back and away from her, but his back cracks against the wall, there's nowhere to go – and before he knows what's happening, she has dragged him close. Her touch burns. Quakes of sensation sear through him where skin meets skin, the muffled rustle of their clothes, breath races, _he_ _hears_ _her_ _stifling_ _sobs_ _and it tears him apart _– he knows what is happening here, and he knows this is the biggest mistake he'll ever make. Because as he looks down to her, he knows she is finally his. He can rob her of everything; steal her heart away this stinking night and not only will she let him, but she'll enjoy every fucking second of it. He tries to push her away defiantly, but as hard as he struggles, she only holds him tighter, as though she can read his mind, like she thinks he _needs_ this –

"Get away – _let go –"_ He bellows furiously, "You can't save me _damn_ it Kate, _goddamn_ _it_ -- "

And somewhere, somehow the intent changes. He never can pinpoint where or how. But one moment he is pushing her away with all the barely suppressed wrath and loathing he can muster, and then next he is gripping her close with a carnal craving, just needing so badly to feel her comforting weight, her heat, her legs closing about his body in the dark. Because he _wants_ her to save him, he wants to believe that she can so bad… as she locks her arms about him he drinks up the heady rush that she gives him, burying his head into her neck and her deep, blessedly soft mane of hair. As their struggle ends and she crushes on top of him, he gives in.

Exhausted and battered, he just throws in the towel, and gives in.

Kate can feel his body trembling beneath her like a livewire as he gropes for her blindly in the night, and the intoxicating feel of him beneath her, powerful arms encircling her sends shudders of desire through her which she is no longer strong enough to fight. Because this isn't just physical desire anymore – it is a desire to rid herself of this terrible weight she has carried so long, the weight of her past – she feels it in him too, knows he needs this.

As they lie entangled together, she holds his head tightly to her heart which drums against her ribs, desperately willing him to give into her… and as her own barriers crumble, the tears scald her cheeks and she brings her face to his. He is trembling, fighting furiously to remain composed, not to break… but she needs him to. She needs to see his tears, needs to see that for once they are equal in this, that there is no more competition…

She doesn't see, but she feels his face crease against her arm, feels the hitch of his breath against her skin, like he is drowning and can't get his breath. The tremors rock him hard, and her hands rake through his hair, caress his brow, but he refuses to meet her eyes, doesn't want her to see him break… he resists her to the last, but her touch is dissolving his control…

And as she tries tilting his grizzled jaw upwards to her… and she sees the tracks, silver in the twilight running down his cheeks. The kick to the guts it gives her astounds her, that he has been moved to tears, and it is okay, she finally knows, it is okay to cry. She lets go of her final defences and her own tears course down her cheeks, as her lips brush over his tracks for comfort, the salt and sweat of him tasting like coming home – he groans under her, eyelids flickering, and her pulse races as she realizes their well marked boundaries are dissolving in the sand…

When he shifts his head fitfully in her hands their lips connect _oh-so briefly_ – and the surge of heat that bursts through her on his touch is enough to make her gasp against her will. It is like a surge of pure adrenaline races through their shattered bodies in unison, and for a moment, their only lips linger, chaste and hot on each other, in that terrible no-mans land between safety and peril, loving and spurning –_ between the past and the future… _

Then Kate slowly opens her mouth, and kisses his lips softly. He moans softly beneath her, holding back… then gently, he nips at her mouth hungrily, longingly…

The heat inside him is almost more than he can stand, burning up every inch of him with a maniacal fever for her, to feel her, taste her, hold her. Hedoesn't care if this is right or wrong anymore, just knows that the mere touch of her takes away this pain. Desire trembles through him as her hands reach under his shirt, travel over his hard stomach, chest… he runs his own up her slender back, finally allowing them to free reign to rake up and beneath her skimpy vest as he had so often fantasized about doing. She flicks her head back, a whimper escaping her as he holds her close, lips travelling to her neck…

The pressure of his roughened hands travelling up her sides rockets the blood to her head, and Kate desperately tries to hold onto her self control, not wanting to show too much of herself until he did… but as he nuzzles into her neck, all warmth and tender kisses and bristle, her hands clench through the remains of his hair, urging him on. And as his lips crush back to hers, fire scorches through her veins, and she pushes him down hard on his back. He grunts a little, eyes shooting open spiritedly, and he grins mischievously under her kisses, understanding the unspoken challenge in her.

Roughly he pulls her down, raking his hands down her back and marvelling at how she arches with him, their bodies fitting together like two halves of a long shattered whole. As their mouths connect his tongue is there, searching for hers, aching for the connection, and as if upping the stakes, he feels Kate's breath quicken on his cheek as a hand travels down his body, works at the zipper on his jeans. For a brief moment he can only stare up at her, _into her, _the question burning in his eyes,

_Are you sure?_

The heat of Sawyers hands resting at her hipbones, near the band of her trousers is intoxicating. And although she sees him pull back with that unspoken question in his smouldering eyes, Kate merely brings her lips to his savagely now in such a deep and powerful kiss it takes her breath away.

Finally giving the two-finger salute to self-control, Sawyer loses himself in his sheer craving of her. Bringing her vest up with a tug over that wild mane of hers, he never loses eye contact with her, as she shucks out of her trousers. As he loses his own, the sensation of her bare legs wrapping about him, enclosing him in their safe embrace is like rocket fuel to his already aching libido. His hands smooth down her back and arms, and holding his gaze in the darkness, she leans back and unclasps her bra. But in that moment, Sawyer sees she is scared. _Feels _it rip through him like a greater awareness – the look in her eyes as she drops the nondescript bra to the earth to reveal two of the most beautiful breasts he's ever seen, is so full of terror he temporarily forgets what they are actually in the _middle_ of.

Kate thinks suddenly, what if she is not good enough for him, what if she can't perform…? It has been a long time, too long since she has made love to someone, not screwed or fucked, but given herself, body and battered soul to someone else… and she knows that once this deed is done, there will be no going back for them. She could no longer delude herself that she wasn't like him, because he would have laid claim to a very real part of her somewhere deep inside…

When he stops, there is just their out of synch breathing for a moment… then she grows acutely aware of his heart racing, as he throbs against her… but his eyes spear her in unspoken worry. _What's wrong?_

"_I don't think I can save you." _She whispers, and Sawyer leans forth and holds her close, chest to chest, cheek to cheek. Strokes her hair, kisses her brow.

"_It's okay." _He murmurs, but she pulls back and looks up at him with those heartbreaking emerald eyes which glitter in the moonlight.

"_No," _She whispers, gripping him tightly, "No, you don't understand. I can't save you… _because maybe we don't need saving."_

He can't find words to answer her. His heart feels like it will stop.

She only lowers herself down onto him, and slowly sets the pace. As he rocks with her he can't believe this is happening, that after all the shit which has happened this horrific night that it has come to this. And as much as he tries to hold himself back, as much as wants to draw this out as he usually does with women, the fact that it is _Kate_ he is with, _Kate's_ face which hovers inches from his own which will not allow him to. He can't believe it. This has been a long time coming, and no matter how expert he was in his old life at teasing women, Freckles ain't the same. Her mere touch destroys his self control, and he moves on top of her, thrusting, grinding, unable to stop himself, and the frantic way she rolls against him only spurs him on. In those moments, he isn't human. He's an animal, a monster, and she'd better _know_ that --

When she arches beneath him, he feels her body tense – and as her cry trembles on the air, dying away, his own body spasms and he follows her swiftly over the edge. The white noise of the blood rushing to his head eradicates all the pain, all the hatred and he just holds her close as he collapses into her. For a moment, there is nothing save their rushed breathing in the air, and a thousand thoughts racing through his head.

_Angels can illuminate the darkest paths Jimmy,_ his mother had said, _Angels are the love that overcome hatred. _

This is one fucked up angel lying beneath him… but maybe the sentiment still stands somehow, he suddenly allows himself to think.

Sawyer moves to get up so he doesn't crush her, but Kate locks her arms about him to his surprise… and he smiles down at her softly.

"Guess that answers my question."

"What question would that be?" Kate bites her lip, cheeks flushed crimson.

"Wondered if you had freckles all over," His eyes sparkle as he kisses her neck. She rolls her eyes, leaning into him.

"I hate my freckles. You know that."

She feels his mouth smile against hers, "Baby, an angel without freckles is like the damn heavens without stars."

A lump forms in Kate's throat suddenly. Because although he'll be gone by morning, James is lying beside her now, his arms hold her. The darkness has left them for a blessed few hours, long enough for her to realize that he can be saved. And if he can be saved, maybe they both can. Because as she looks up into James, she knows Sawyer hasn't won…

She kisses him fully, curling her body into his and _finally_, he thinks, just before sleep enfolds him, _finally I said something right._ As he holds her close, his thoughts turn outwards, to the boat and rescue, and how in hell he was going to get Kate away from here…

* * *

**PLEASE REVIEW ME! GO ON, IT ONLY TAKES A SECOND : )**

* * *

_As a side note, I listened to a track by Ed Harcourt off his new album, 'The Beautiful Lie' When I was writing this – it's called late night partner. Below are some of the lyrics, which fit beautifully over the last sequence. _

_Be my late night partner_

_She'll pull me from the crowd_

_We'll dance to your old records_

_We'll drink till we pass out_

_There are moments when I feel so alive_

_I've lost everyone I need_

_The music slays my heart and soul_

_Every hour, day and week._

_I'm on the edge of something beautiful_

_I'm on the edge of something beautiful…_

_Sing with me till the end of time_

_I love the way you read my mind_

_Laughter makes you live so much longer_

_Don't know if the pain makes you stronger_

_Give me something that burns inside_

_To make me shiver, to shut my eyes_

_Late night partner, don't bother sleeping_

_Tell me all the secrets your keeping…_

Just in case any of you guys wanted some music to soundtrack this landmark chapter: )

**Just to say also -- THANKS SO MUCH FOR REVIEWING! Its so amazing to hear from you guys, and I appreciate the time you take to do so, it makes my day : )**


	21. Paradise Lost

**Chapter 21**

**Paradise Lost**

Visions morph and fade in the honey golden light. Voices Kate can't make out, and faces she doesn't want to remember vie for her attention. And then the world clarifies, melting together as it always does, and she is stumbling through a clammy Indian summer night, a heavy weight slung over her shoulder. This dream never changes – doomed as she is to relive this hellish night, the dream often starts different, but always ends the same. She turns breathlessly to feel the familiar rush of Waynes breath on her face as she drags him towards the house, that disgusting whisky soaked breath.

"_You don't gotta help me lil' girl…" _He slurs, "I can walk jus' fine…"

Passing bookcases with twenty years worth of photographs and memories, Kate hauls him along, "You just fell over twice, I really don't think that's a good idea --"

And as she lies his repulsive mass on the grimy bed, and she feels him swipe for her with a fist that had broken her jaw months earlier. As she covers him with a blanket, his final words ring in the oppressive air,

"Aren't you gonna take my pants off first? You are beautiful --"

_"Goodnight." _She drags herself away, the knowledge of what she is about to do weighting her stomach as she turns calmly and walks out of the room, down the hall which she had played in as a young girl, past the alcove where she had her first kiss with Tom, and out the front door, across the lawn where she'd stood feeling like an ugly ducking in her prom gown whilst her overexcited mom had taken pictures with a black eye and broken ribs. All of it will be gone, cleansed and purified forever in moments by fire --

She hitches her trembling leg over the ticking girth of the motorcycle, feels its body heated through from the lingering heat of the day and thinks of Wayne, vile, vicious Wayne lying in his bed and pawing her for the last time when suddenly --

"_Kate!"_

Wait a minute_. This isn't how it happened_ – this dream is like an old wound which will never heal, one which has continually reannounced its pain every night to her ever since she killed him, and she knows it inside out _– this is wrong –_

And as she turns fearfully, she recognizes that voice, that honey coated gravely voice and _it can't be --_

As she turns in horror it is like her limbs have been coated in lead, her stomach turns in all encompassing dread and _she can't move fast enough_…

…_As_ _Sawyer_ _lumbers_ _onto_ _the_ _porch_.

"Kate!" He calls with that mischievous twinkle in his eye which hits her like a sledgehammer now, "Hey now Freckles, where you goin!"

And the deafening explosion sears through the world, as it has done countless times, inescapable, always the same. But before the white ring of fire rips outwards through the wooden slatted house in a sonic boom of destruction, before the glass explodes outwards in jagged shards and he is engulfed forever, Kate sees the look on Sawyers face, and she will never forget it. It burns right down inside her and brands itself on her battered psyche, irrevocably, _eternally_ --

_Why did you kill me?_

Because before the fire hits him, Sawyer meets her gaze in horror – _and_ _darkest_ _betrayal_.

* * *

Jacknifing upright with a gasp, heart skittering crazily Kate bites back a scream. Blearily staring about in hunted panic the shapes shift and swirl, and she tries to control herself, jam it all down – but it isn't like normal, this dream will not fade into obscurity, this dream was different, _Sawyer was in this dream and she had killed him –_

And as she turns in terse anguish, she sees him lying uncomfortably next to her on his front, back rising and falling deeply, twilight gleaming from his bare back, and she remembers.

Stumbling up, Kate staggers out of the stifling hatch into the night air and wraps her arms around her thin frame. This is like childhood, this grief, so raw and complete, like nothing in this world could ever begin to heal it. Whispery sobs break out of her, unbidden, unwanted, another sign of her revolting weakness. The grief is old, she knows it well. The enduring feeling of dread has bled into the real world from her distant dream, destroying everything that was good in the past few hours, everything which had promised her a place on the long, hard path of change. The ecstasy of the release Sawyer had given her, the blessing of not his forgiveness, but an _acceptance_ she has sought out desperately her entire life, all seem as fragile and unreal as her dream now. Nothing makes sense anymore. Everything is threatening to spin out of control, at a point where she desperately needs to be strong, at a point where their new union should have given her the _strength _to be strong…

But the dream comes back to haunt her, and she knows it is a lie. She may have fooled the others, and may even have gone so far as fooling the cops that she was ruthless, merciless, clever… but she is not _strong_ anymore. She cannot take this. And she knows the closer she gets to Sawyer, the more she gives of herself to him, the greater the chance that he will find out, and find her weak. And maybe he is right

_Honey, I might never change but you're goddamn timeless!_

Maybe nobody changes in this life. No matter how much they crave it, or would move the earth to. The look on his face as he'd stood on her rickety porch in the awful prelude to the blast will never leave her. She will be the death of him, just as she had been the death of Wayne,

_You run. I con. Tiger don't change its stripes._

Well she won't let it happen. No matter how much it breaks her heart, or how much she feels for him, she will not be his downfall. As she sits crumpled under the night's blanket of stars, she swears to each and every one of them that she will never allow herself to hurt him. _She won't let it happen. _

Sawyer awakens sluggishly when the damn bedroll shifts under him, and internally berates it to hell. How could something so thin and useless have enough bulk to wake him up when he shifts?

Then when a shadow flits over him accompanied by a soft creaking of floorboards, he groggily deducts that he didn't sleep alone last night. And then it all comes rushing back, with a double-edged wave of beauty and horror at what had happened, at what he'd willingly succumbed to.

He cracks his eyes open and watches Kate's form stumble towards the doorway in spaced out confusion, wondering if she had heard something, perhaps seen the ship…? But then he sees her drop to her knees out there, clutching them tightly to her chest and begin to shiver uncontrollably.

He can only watch her silently a while. Because no matter how it tears him up to see her this way, so utterly defenceless and lost, although he knows he should be up off his ass and comforting her, his ingrained reaction is to feign sleep, let her fix it herself. He's hopeless at comforting women, and crying ones are the worst – somehow he always manages to make 'em cry more, despite his best intentions.

And yet this is all a smokescreen maybe… because as he watches her crying silently, so as not to wake him maybe, he believes it is because of _him_. Because of what they just did. Maybe she hates him for it now… because she'll never be able to kid herself she ain't like him, won't be able to play the disgusted card no more…

Before he can feign sleep though, she has stood up and shuffled back inside the hatch. For a moment their eyes meet in shock, both realizing they have been caught out. Then they both look away in shame, and Sawyer knows the underlying friction between them could never change so easily. He'd been a fool to think it could.

"Mornin'". He grunts softly.

"Night." She says briskly, not looking at him, "It's still dark out."

"What time is it?"

"Eight twenty." She mumbles, intent on tying her shoelaces. He only watches her, knowing with a sinking feeling that she is blocking him out. He feels a bitter surge of resentment, then weary annoyance. Why he had thought it could ever be any different with her, he'll never know.

He sits, the heat in the dusky room stifling as hell as he buttons up his shirt in silence, and notices the way Kate pointedly averts her eyes. Jesus, like she hadn't seen a hell of a lot more than his chest earlier…

He stands, back stiff and makes a great show of pulling on his pants, anything to avoid eye contact with her. In the end draws a deep breath. "So..." He falters, "Do we talk about it, or not?"

She stares at him blankly, and the coldness there shocks him. "Don't see any reason to," he answers himself. "Unless you got anything to say?"

She looks away, shoving supplies into her pack. Her hair completely obscures her face, straightened from where he'd pulled the curls out earlier. "Just that I'm sorry," she almost whispers.

"You're sorry…" He echoes tonelessly before he can stop himself, her words chilling him more than he would ever have imagined.

"You told me once, that you've been with girls with me before." She turns on him, and the haunted look on her face sends waves of goose chills over his skin, "Do you remember that?"

"_Kate_ –"

"And what did I say to you?"

"You really wanna have this conversation now --!"

Her eyes flash, "What did I _say_ to you?"

He looks at her begrudgingly, hating her for making him say it. "Not girls exactly like you."

"Exactly." Her eyes shine in bitter satisfaction, "Just remember that. You don't know me, you don't know what I'm like, _the things I've done --"_

She turns out into the dark night and he yells, "Kate! Kate where you _going_?"

She spins with fire in her eyes, and he sees how pale she is, her eyes red ringed and haunted,

_Hey now Freckles, where you goin!_

The voices echo ceaselessly back at her, as the dream rises behind her eyes and her implant burns, _"I didn't ask you to be there --" _She hisses, and in her minds eye she sees Sawyer in Waynes place on the porch, _"It wasn't meant to be you --"_

Even in her frantic state, Kate notices the change in him. Sawyers eyes shutter with bitterness, and his defences ram up full force.

"It wasn't, huh…?" He breathes with disbelieving malice. He almost tells her to lie to him, but bites it back. Because he would believe her if she did, and then he would never recover.

"No." She grits pleadingly, knowing that he will think her crazy, that it was just a dream, that she's losing her mind, but uncaring – she just needs him to know she would never hurt him, _never have left the gas on if she had known._ "I'm so sorry – I didn't mean for it to happen, _I didn't mean for you to get hurt –"_

He looks into her so sadly, that she has a moment to register that this wasn't the response she was expecting. Even in her halfway state of mind between dreams and reality, she hadn't expected to see this pain surface in his eyes. That's what she had been trying to avoid!

Before Kate can say anymore, Sawyer turns away quickly as the rejection buzzes around his head ceaselessly,

_It wasn't meant to be you_

And all he can think is her tears were for Jack, for the good doctor who'd stitched his last stitch, saved his last soul. She was cut up about losing him, and Sawyer had been a comfort fuck, a drug to numb her pain for a few blessed hours. How deep did this go? What if she _loved_ the doc, what if she would never get over him? And Christ, had she been seeing him when they were screwing!

He turns away and Kate looks after him in shock.

"You couldn't hurt me if you tried sweetheart! So why don't we just rewind here, go back to yesterday morning and pretend none of this lousy mess ever happened huh?" He hears the false bravado in his voice, wonders if had ever sounded more like a lie, as he sets about handling this the only way he knows how – embracing the pain, he stuffs it deep down inside where it smoulders, burns, and _fuels_ him.

"If that's what you want to do." She says in a small voice, and he can't even bring himself to look at her. Because he knows what's happening here. He can feel it, inside. His stomach is cramping and he feels so hopelessly hollow, so desperately unfulfilled. This is the kind of emptiness where he had steeled himself to expect the worst, where he had told himself that love was out of the question, impossible, but in the very innermost chambers of his soul, where James was locked away from the world, he had still secretly craved it nonetheless.

"That's what I want to do." He says, never believing his words such a contradiction.

"Please… try and understand…" Kate breathes, "I need you to understand me. I didn't mean it Sawyer."

"Don't worry," He grits, her renunciation like salt in a never healing wound, "I understand just fine."

But Kate sees through the blatant lie here, and can't fathom how things have worked out this way when all she had meant to do was reassure him, tell him how much she cared, wanted to protect him from _herself_ –

Suddenly a foghorn drones on the clammy air, cutting the conversation in its tracks -- and they look to each other in dread.

"_The boat --!" _Sawyer hisses.

Clambering onto the nearest rope bridge with careless abandon, they work their way out into its swaying center, boards creaking treacherously underfoot, rope burning their hands in their haste – as they come to gaze anxiously down into the dank jungle valley below, and past that, over the never-ending sweeping canopy of palms…

… down to the distant beach front which is in uproar, where specks of people the size of ants skitter and rush towards the ocean… towards a vast cruise liner which rests in the raven black waters of the bay. It's floodlights flare through the dusk, its sprawling bulk bejewelled with a hundred lights, dancing like fairies in the darkness.

* * *

The sob of relief that escapes Kate against her will is all consuming, although it is laced with darkest dread. This could be a terrible mistake – out of the frying pan and into the fire. If things go bad out there, on a _ship,_ there will be nowhere to run -- 

But Sawyer has gripped her hand and they are moving quickly across the last bridge, and as the world around her changes, through treetops and down ladders, skirting through bushes and crouching through undergrowth, her mind goes into overdrive. What if the crew have details – worse still, a _manifest_ -- of who was on the plane? What if federal marshals are waiting aboard right now to arrest her? Her mind explodes with the possibilities, as she plots the different ways she could possibly gain passage aboard the ship without being detected, mentally running through each and every one only to discard them again as unfeasible --

When she comes back to herself she dazedly realizes she has moved stealthily down the hillside, is pressed against the warm bark of a tree. A convoy of jeeps fly past, and she watches in shock. Sawyer is not _here_ --

* * *

Sawyer had lost Kate when his damn busted leg had given out and she'd just ploughed on into the woods like a madwoman. It could only have been minutes ago but Lord on high it felt like years – as he broke out into a freezing sweat, he back tracked, gun locked and loaded just in case he found a Dharma goon looking for trouble – but instead, he stops and listens a moment. When he hears a low drone slowly rising into an ominous crashing, Sawyer ducks behind a tree as a convoy of jeeps plough into the clearing at breakneck speed. As they roar past him by, he sees the Dharma logo's branded on their sides, and they spray mud and rain water all over him, like a damn insult! 

Biting back a yell of rage, he watches after them furiously from his hiding place, and as the convoy speeds through, the jeeps bumping wildly over the uneven ground, Sawyer's eyes glare on the last one – his implant suddenly _burns_ –

As two wide brown eyes stare out from the back of the last jeep, pinning him with a pleading stare as the jeep ploughs on into darkness –

_Walt!_

The boys mouth forms a shocked O of surprise, but Sawyer quickly ducks into the shadows before the damn kid can draw any attention to him. And before he knows it, the grind of the convoy is fading, and he is alone again.

"_What the hell are you doing?"_ An angry voice hisses to his left, and he spins to see Kate, hands on her hips with that damn manic look about her. He suddenly sees the fugitive in her, hunted, wanted – a woman who, when cornered, would do anything to save her own skin. _But she had come back. _

"I saw _Walt_." He mutters through a mouth gone dry as the Sahara.

"Its not real," She says plaintively, "Whatever your seeing isn't _real_ –"

"Not _here,"_ He retorts, "In the back of one of those jeeps! Damn kid nearly gave away my spot --"

"Come on --" Kate grips his hand, eyes alight with the possibility of escape.

"Why did you come back?" He burst, before he can stop himself. He's sick of trying to make sense of her when there's no sense left in the world anymore, "Y' can see the damn beach from here! You're home and dry. Why'd you waste you're time coming back here? You don't owe me jack --"

He sees her eyes flare and he immediately berates himself for his slip up.

"I've got my reasons." She says but she _won't meet his eye –_

"What have I _got_ out there Kate?" He says wearily, "Ain't nobody missed me when I landed on this craphole island, I ain't got nothin' to go back to." His heart flares with remorse suddenly as Garrett's face flares behind his eyes, "And maybe I don't deserve to leave. Maybe I deserve whatever they wanna do to me --"

"I know you're looking for someone to blame," She breathes, closing in on him urgently, "But we can't change what's been done -- whatever you put yourself through won't bring Garrett back. And no'one deserves whatever they would do to you, okay Sawyer?" Her eyes flash with such fierce protection it momentarily stuns him, _"I won't let it happen."_

"You won't, huh?" He says softly, strangely reassured by the look in her eye.

"I need your help." She says, and the brutal honesty in her voice strikes him in a way he doesn't expect. He can only look to her in disbelief, and she urgently elaborates, "I need your help to get away."

"You want me to help you run." He echoes, beginning to feel like a damn parrot. Why could he never second guess a word this crazy girl woman would say!

"No." Kate's eyes spear him through the darkness, and her icy determination bewitches him, _"I want you to help me stay safe."_

* * *

Sawyer sneaks along the beach front tree line - but instead of feeling like he is coming home, he no longer recognizes the idyllic scrap of beach they had once claimed as their own. The battered lean-to's have been decimated, and Sawyer sees with a pang of sorrow that his fellow castaways are gone – most of the figures on this beach are now dressed in military fatigues. He hates the sight of it suddenly, like Dharma have come along and torn away the fragile homestead they had dutifully built over the fifty days they had been there without a second thought. Sawyer wonders if Claire and turniphead got onto the boat safely, if that damn limey runt had smuggled aboard his Virgin Mary Statues. This seems so surreal – he can't imagine Locke, knife thrower, tracker and the hunter of boar sitting at a buffet bar on the liner, or Sayid, torturer extraordinaire suppin' on a Pepsi and making small talk by the pool – he met these people in the wild, and somehow, that is how he always imagined them remaining. 

Suddenly there are frantic footfalls behind him, and as Sawyer jerks behind a nearby tree trunk, he sees a dark shadow pass him – _and the blood rockets to his head with a dizzying malevolence. _

His arms shoot out, and he pistol-whips the figure neatly. The man gives a muffled cry, and Sawyer drags him into the shadows, hand over his mouth – and when Sawyer cracks the man back against the base of a nearby tree, breathing heavily, he cocks his gun straight in a familiar face.

"You don't wanna know what I swore I'd do to you if I ever saw you again."

"Sawyer, you gotta _believe_ me –" Michael stares back in pain, clutching his head, voice a hoarse whisper, "They double crossed me. There was no boat -- I didn't know what they were planning – you wouldn't understand, but the voices were _telling_ _me to do it man –" _Plaintively,"They said they just wanted to _talk to you guys --!"_

"Well looks like they were telling you porky pies, son!" His eyes glint viciously, "Caus I'm guessing they never gave you your damn _kid_ back either."

"Walt?" Michael's dusty eyes suddenly blaze, "What do you know about Walt_, did you see him?"_

"Well ain't this just the pits!" Sawyer reclines, "You leave me up shit creek without a damn paddle, and here I am, only one knows where he is. Seem like there's some kinda sick justice there, dontcha think?"

"_Where is he --" _Michael reaches forth desperately but Sawyer cocks the gun.

"Easy there Mike. You gotta do me a little favour first."

Michael's eyes widen in slow disbelief. "A favour… you're bartering my sons life for a _favour_!"

"You wanna know where he is or not?"

Michael's jaw clenches, and Sawyer knows he wants to hit him, beat the crap outta him, and he doesn't miss the small power rush he gets knowing he has turned the tables on his once friend. He leans closer… "Your gonna walk right over to those army folks and tell 'em you seen me and Kate, and we're in the jungle right over there." Sawyer points up the beach.

"You think they'll fall for that!"

"Why not? Ain't the first time you turned tail and sold us out is it?"

Michael takes this on the chin, miserably staring out at the chaotic beach. After a moment, he grits; "What are you gonna do?"

"Kate's a little shy around cops, has this nasty habit of gettin' kinda _trigger_ _happy_." Sawyer sighs, "Now I'm _gettin'_ her on that boat, past these Dharma assholes, and a friendly word of advice? They start combing the damn boat for us, I'll know you sold us out, and I'll come _after_ you."

"You call that advice! I'd call that a _threat_ --"

"Hey!" Sawyer sits back and lets Michael come to the only conclusion he can, "You say tomato, I say to_may_to Mike."

"Okay." Michael succumbs finally. "Now where is he?"

Sawyer smiles, then extends his hand. Michael looks to him in shock. "Wouldn't a thought a handshake would count for much with a conman."

"Well," Sawyer says as Michael grips his hand and shakes, "I'm a man a my word, Mike." He grips onto Michael's hand in a vice-like grip, "And know that if you double cross me on this, I'll make good on killing you."

"I don't doubt it." Michael's lip curls in disgust. Sawyer nods, and gestures towards the line of jeeps silhouetted a little way up the beach front. "Boy's right there in those jeeps."

Michael stands uncertainly, probably knowing better than to trust him, but badly needing to believe it. "Son of a bitch." Michael stands dazedly, eyes flashing in disgust as he moves away, "Conning your way outta here… some things never change."

Michael's parting blow stays with Sawyer a long time. _No matter_, Sawyer thinks grimly as Michael slip- slides down the sand dunes onto the silky beach and out of his life for good, _just more fuel for the fire. _

As Sawyer gestures to Kate, and she weaves noiselessly from the shadows towards him, he notices she has paled completely, and upon sight of the military, her face has aquired a steely set he doesn't like. And as Michael moves towards the soldiers guarding the gangway over the slapping water and onto the boat, he puts a guiding arm around her to feel her tensed like a damn spring. And she says in a completely rational voice,

"I can't leave."

"What!" She had spoken these words like she was askin' him to pass the damn hummus, not leave her here to her death.

"The Island." She says, and distant as she is, she still has that tone like she is talking to a particularly slow five year old. "Whose to say as soon as I step foot on that boat that I won't be _arrested_ Sawyer? At least here, I'm free. At least here, I know I can hide. Out there, nothing's certain. I'm sick of it."

And the look he had mistaken for steely resolve reveals itself to be what he had truly feared all along – deepest resignation. Her forehead lines, amber eyes searching the distant horizon for answers she'll never find, enunciating each word like they physically hurt her, "I'm so _sick_ of looking over my shoulder, wondering how much longer I can survive for, living out of a _backpack_ -- here, things were different. I put down _roots_. I felt _safe_ --"

"You seem to be forgetting the armoured tanks and Dharma clowns that declared open season on our heads!" He hisses plaintively, "This place's gone bad Freckles. It's to late to back out, and ain't noplace we can hide here they won't _find_ us -- _we got to go –"_

"This place changed me -- I _changed_. I can't run anymore --"

"You can, because I ain't lettin' you throw your whole life away caus you're tired!" His eyes burn into hers, "You don't think I'm tired? You don't think I want all this to be over? Well people _died_ so we could get this far Kate, and when I wanted to quit would you let me? Like hell you would! We can't change what's happened, you said that – and it don't make it easy to live with, but it sure as hell don't mean we lay down and wait for them to come to us!"

Kate is looking at him with a kind of renewed fire, and it transfers from her and sears right through him, the knowledge that amongst his garbled words, something is getting through –

"I don't want you to get hurt." She says in a soft, brutally sincere voice, "And if you come with me, you will."

"Why don't you let me be the judge of that…" He says softly.

"They've got the whole beachfront sealed off, Sawyer." She says, and he knows she is searching for excuses, that she could easily sneak her way through if she had a mind to, "You think they're gonna let us board? We're the reason they're here!"

"Don't you worry." Sawyer says, glad to see that ominous distance has diminished in her eyes, that she is coming round, "I gotta plan so _clever_, so fiendishly _cunning_ you could putta tail on it and call it a weasel."

He gestures down to the beachfront where Michael is gesturing wildly to the soldiers, his movements wide and directed towards the distant bushes Sawyer had pointed out.

"This is you're fiendishly cunning plan?" Kate's breath comes fast against his ear as he pulls his hooded jacket off and wraps it around her as a disguise, "A _diversion_!"

"Don't talk, just _walk_." He mutters as he yanks her up and they move resolutely towards the gangway. Upon seeing them approaching, Michael gestures harder and finally the two armed soldiers relent and stride far enough away from the entrance to the gangway for Sawyer and Kate to have a chance –

Feet beating over sand, hearts thudding jointly in chests, eyes locked on their feet, they move as one towards the gangway –

Sawyer pulls Kate close, pulling the hood over her head and holding her face to his chest so she is completely hidden –

Heart pounding against his ribcage so hard and fast – _he can feel her heart through his thin tee shirt joining his in unified exhilaration and fear --_

Soldiers shifting mere feet away –

And then his feet meet creaking metal, as they move as a shadow to merge in with the last stragglers of the survivors of Oceanic 815, as they travel the final gangway away from the island, away from the love and the pain and the beauty that the place had brought them, and into the bowels of the great ticking liner…

And as they make it to the top of the gangway unquestioned, Sawyer turns fleetingly before they disappear inside. The island now resides in the darkest folds of the night, but he will not remember it this way. He will remember burning days in the sand staring out into the blue, diving and frolicking with Freckles in waterfalls and on jungle floors, chasing mysterious cases, chasing Kate, chasing vodka with 'I never'.

And as he turns into the ship, he knows this place has gone bad. But it don't change the fact he is grateful to God on high that he was lost out here awhile. As he holds Kate close, he wonders what in hell they are gonna do now. How in hell can they run from Dharma when they are slowly laying claim to their minds? Part of him still can't believe they're even trying.

But then he remembers who his arms are clutching tight, remembers that although she may never feel as much as he does for her, Kate is with him,

_I need you to help me stay safe_

And by God, after all they'd been through to get this far, he would die making sure she did.

**PLEASE REVIEW ME!**

_Ps: This is NOT the last chapter… I do have a lot more in mind, as they are now on the run together -- but I need to hear you guys want to read it! So please let me know, or I'm happy to call it a day : )_


	22. Bad Blood

**Chapter 22**

**Bad Blood**

Dodging through the loading bay, Sawyer and Kate traverse through the gridlock of sea flecked parked cars, glittering under the lowly flickering overheads as the metallic grind of the gangway drawing in on its colossal chains fills the air. The roar of the sea and heavy machinery makes any fleeting conversation impossible, as Kate takes the lead. Sawyer knows better than to stop her - she's in her element here, staying in the shadows, sneaking around, running, hiding, and she's probably a damn sight better at it than him. The more pissed off he gets at her incessant darting and running, the more she seems to be _enjoying_ this – like she is finally back on old ground, like she has finally reverted to her primal instincts.

As they duck into a stairwell, moments before the doors seal on the transport deck, Kate pulls down the hood of Sawyer's hooded jacket, spilling her dark locks over her shoulders, and pissed off as Sawyer is, something about seeing her dwarfed in his big 'ole jumper thaws him out, against his will. He immediately hardens his heart against her, her words echoing back to him

_It wasn't meant to be you…_

After checking up the stairwell and satisfying herself it is deserted, Kate looks up to him a businesslike manner which makes him want to drag her back into the transport deck and have sex on a car. "You got any money on you?"

"Kate," He drawls in exhaustion, "I've been dragged through the jungle, imprisoned in a box, and shot outta a chimney like a kill-crazy cannonball into the damn ocean. What do _you_ think?"

She nods, as though expecting this reaction and bites her lip. "You think you can get us a room?"

"Don't sweat it," He nods tiredly, realising he hasn't slept more than an hour or so in weeks. "I got it covered."

"Sawyer, the last time you said that you --"

"Alright, alright." He waves, grimacing. "If I'm not back in ten, make your own damn arrangements."

* * *

He scales the fancy blue and gold stairwell as quickly as his aching limbs and throbbing leg will allow, passing tacky wall displays of fibre-optic flowers, to find a map on the third deck landing. He figures out his way to a smaller branch of reception on the six floor, and swears that his hike had better be worth it, if only there ain't so many holier-than-thou staff with nosy questions. 

His luck finally appears to be on the up, as most of the brainless passengers are in bed or someplace else, just as he'd banked on – deck 6 is deserted as they come, and as a _bonus_, there is _one_ young attendant on this desk. One young _pretty_ attendant, he notes with predatory anticipation as his old tendencies rush forth to fit him like a glove, just as Kate's had done – but the thought brings with it a bitter aftertaste that he doesn't expect and refuses to examine right now.

Pushing it to the back of his mind, he ducks into a bathroom and does his best at shifting three months worth of filth from his face. For a moment, he can't remember how to work the taps – everything seems so new, so _clean. _He is shocked at the amount of black which stains the pure white sink when he shoves his hands under. Hell, he's still got sand under his fingernails, but the beach and the Island suddenly seem very far away, a whole world away from this merrily humming bathroom.

He scrubs the free bar of soap across his face, wincing as he gets the damn froth in his eyes. Then, washing off the suds, he takes a deep breath and goes to do something with his mess of hair –

When he looks up, at first he thinks he's hallucinating. The figure staring back looks damn near translucent, like a ghost. It's only when he reaches his hand up to his face, and the figure mimics him that he understands he is seeing his own reflection. His face is pinched and white, eyes red ringed where the horrors they have witness have taken their toll. His hair is a crazed mess, and that godawful red bandage is still stuck on the side of his head. But he can't bring himself to take it off. To take it off would be to see what is _underneath_, and tonight, the thought of that is more than he can take.

So turning around, he sees that whoever is taking their sweet time in the john has left their suit jacket and top hat hooked on the wall. Quickly he grabs both and ducks out into the hall. He wonders if there's a damn _wedding_ on board as he pulls the coat on and the hat down, praying it obscures his face and that the son-of-a-bitch he stole 'em from has enough trouble on the can that he won't come out a moment.

Approaching the counter, Sawyer plasters on his most charming smile as he takes note of her name tag – _Joelle - _as the attendant looks up with a bored expression.

"Look, for the last time, _all_ _the_ _rooms_ _are --"_ Her look changes instantly to an appraising look as she sights his suited form. He thanks his lucky stars she can't see his sorry ass jeans beneath the counter.

"Hey there," Her smile widens into a beam, "I'm sorry, can I help?"

"I'm with the _wedding_ party." Sawyer purrs, praying his luck holds out.

"Oh!" She smiles in recognition, "You're with the Jones's. I thought you were one a those weirdo's they picked up off that Island. Odd, huh?"

"Go figure," He smiles.

"Excuse my tone earlier. We've been bombarded with folk wanting rooms, which we _don't_ have. I had an earful off of a very irate Englishman who told me to call the manager of _Drivecrank_ or something, said I should know who he was?"

Sawyer bites back a snort as he imagines how much Charlie would hate his precious band being called _Drivecrank_. But whilst the lady has been talking away, his eyes have been hungrily roaming the register and found the information he needs. _A vacant room number. _He returns her eyes with a forced smile. "Now I apologise, but I lost my card key? My name's Gregory Low, room 2356?"

"Of course," She smiles, standing and as she bustles to the back wall where the keys are kept, she talks over her shoulder, "But I'm afraid I'm gonna have to get you to fill in a few forms, and we'll need a ten dollar fee for a replacement --"

But when she turns around, he has vanished. She looks about in confusion.

Sawyer staggers down the stairwell, and ceases long enough on deck 4 to tuck the card key he had stolen into his new suit jacket – when his fingers snag around a small rectangle of card. He draws it out curiously, and as he turns it over, his heart drops.

Time seems to stand still a moment.

Because on the starched white card reads in neat typography, next to a logo of a wedding cake, _IT'LL COME BACK AROUND. _

Again and again. Name: it'll come back around. _Address_: it'll come back around, _fucking all of it!_

He hurls the card to the floor in horror, staring at it like it is sent by the damn devil. He can't process it at all. Can't get his head around it.

_You're losing it cowboy, _those voices return with a vengeance, _you're going LOCO!_

His hands clamp onto the railing with white knuckles. He looks down the stairwell and can see at the distant bottom is a shadow, indistinguishable from the darkness. Kate is still waiting. Probably testy as hell for him taking so long, but she is still there.

And the thoughts come rushing back from earlier to haunt him, as he feels the sliver of cool plastic in his pocket. He had slipped back into his old ways so effortlessly it has kind of blindsided him… but maybe he thinks, it had come so easy because the voices had been right all along. He can't have changed at all, if he could so easily steal an old guys jacket and hat without a second thought, or con a naïve little attendant. Now that he and Kate are heading back into the real world, he knows they will revert back to what they know best. It is a more a means of survival now than a defence mechanism, but that doesn't make it right. He may be an immoral, thieving conman, but he is under no illusions here – he knows nothing can justify his actions.

He looks down the stairwell at that shadow waiting amidst ever darker shadows, and for a cowardly, weak moment, he wants to leave her down there. Every time he looks at her, every time he sees her face, he is reminded of Kate in the clearing, Kate utterly cold and devoid of all reason, _Kate pulling the gun on Alex..._ and he sees Garrett, feels the sting of failure all over again…

_It'll come back around!_

How can they get past this when everything is such a senseless mess, where the angel who was supposed to lead him from the path of hatred is a murderer, when he had hopelessly failed his only chance at redemption and left him behind, in a faraway jungle clearing as a feast for the flies?

And as he stares down at Kate's shadow so near and yet seemingly so hopelessly far, he knows it would be the easiest thing in the word to turn around and walk calmly to his new digs, bolt the door behind him and go to ground 'til they reach shore. Because the woman down below is a whole world of trouble, every inch as dangerous as he is, and he is reminded of what he had told Garrett on a rainy beach as grey waves crashed about them,

_If we were an 'item' my lil' capodre, we'd be a damn nuke_

And as Sawyer stares down at her, he doesn't know if he can handle the fallout from the destruction they have caused anymore.

* * *

As Kate waits in the darkness, the steady roar of machinery and crashing waves merging to create white noise in her mind, her mind goes into overdrive as she plots her course over the next months, assuming she can evade capture that long. She needs to make it far enough to track Garrett's wife, find out if she can help _get the implants out of them –_

She checks her battered watch for the hundredth time. Sawyer had said ten minutes. He's been half an _hour_. She has already silently cursed him every name under the sun, and now her insides feel like they are slowly freezing over. Because she has had a niggling feeling, ever since they darted aboard this liner, that something is very wrong. That the events of the past days have affected him in a way she can never fully understand, pushing him far away from her… and she has no idea how to bridge this distance. They had connected, oh so briefly in the darkness, in the aftermath of the tragedy when the pain had grown too great to shoulder alone… but now, as every minute which passes only serves to confirm her darkest fears, she cannot ignore the fact which has been staring her in the face all along.

Both her and Sawyer want to run away. She needs to feel the ground rolling away from her beneath her feet, the transitory sense that there is no past, no future, just one long endless road. And she knows Sawyer needs to run, but in a fundamentally different sense. Whenever anyone gets too close, or threatens to invade his carefully built defences, he cuts and runs.

As she waits at the bottom of the dark stairwell, she faces the fact that he has left her here. She knows it is in his nature to protect himself, and when she crossed the invisible line with him that dark night in the aftermath, she knows she has become a threat to him, a minute, but ever-growing chink in his already worn out armour.

So when she hears soft footsteps on the stairwell and crams back into the shadows suspiciously, she looks upon a man she had already written off, already second-guessed, inevitably already thought the worst of.

"You took your time." She breathes.

"All good things come to those who wait." Sawyer drawls, descending the last stairs. For a moment they just contemplate each other, and Sawyer fears he made the wrong decision. Just looking into this woman, right now, he loses himself. She makes him want to do better, delude himself into believing this _can_ be better.

The reason he had turned around was that although it was his most primal urge to run, he remembered that for Kate, that urge was perhaps ten times stronger, and she _hadn't run. _She had come back for him when it counted. And he _would_ do the same, if only to prove to himself that he could.

Suddenly Kate's face breaks into a shining grin which touches him somehow at this ungodly hour, and she tips his hat. "Do I want to know _why_ you're wearing this get-up…?"

"Long story." He smiles, pulling the card key from his pocket. "But the short of it is, I got us bed and board."

She smiles up at him, taking the key card. "Won't they notice its missing?"

"You always gotta jump to the conclusion I stole things, dontcha?"

She rolls her eyes up at him. "You can drop the act! You already told me you're broke."

_Damn_. He bites his lip. "Well they won't notice its missing Little Miss High and Mighty, I was real discreet. Now if you don't mind, can we freeze our asses off elsewhere?"

* * *

Down a maze of cramped corridors, they follow the twisting vine patterns on the carpet to the room which corresponds to the card key. It is pretty nearby, and they walk in silence, the low buzzing of the flickering lights the only sound which echoes about them. Sawyer has no idea what the damn room is gonna be like, only prays the damn thing ain't _occupied_ – 

He nearly walks straight past, and its only when Kate grabs his arm and motions to the door he realizes they are here. He'd almost expected to be recognized, caught before they got here…

They exchange a look, and bracing himself, Sawyer punches the key into the lock, and Kate opens the door.

* * *

The first thing Sawyer is absurdly thankful for, is that the room _is_ vacant, and the second thing only hits him once Kate has bolted the door and flicked the light switch. This place is _high class. _Ocean view, white carpet, TV, double bed, hot tub…! Holy crap, there's even a _mini_ _bar! _He crosses over to it in two paces, the pain in his limbs all but forgotten under the promise of alcohol -- and he _yanks it open –_

To find a small laminate inside which reads, _'To fill mini-bar, please call 0900 and leave your credit number'._

"Son-of-a--!" He moans in dejection, dropping it with a foul look.

"Sawyer, _check it out!" _

He turns, pissed off but intrigued by the excitement in Kate's voice to see that she has drawn a plush white curtain back to reveal a set of glass and mahogany double doors, which she pulls open. The roar of the ocean immediately fills the cabin, the tang of salt in the air, and Kate turns to him with a look of childish exhilaration on her face, so different to the cold efficiency he has grown used to.

"It's a private deck…!" She breathes in disbelief, eyes dancing as she grips his hand and pulls him out into the whipping night wind. The stars shine down over the vast and sparkling ocean as they stare outwards, this moment of unexpected peace creeping up on both of them, so blissfully unforeseen, yet so badly needed.

They gaze to one another, a ridiculous pair standing on the swanky deck, one dressed in a stolen top hat and coat, the other in a mud stained jacket. They smile at each other tentatively, not wanting to break this fragile spell of calm.

"Come on," He breathes finally, "Nice as this is, I need to grab some sleep."

* * *

Kate treats herself to a shower, and she is wearily surprised that she heard no lewd comments from Sawyer about joining her. Yet another sign that he was not himself, and as she wraps her hair in a towel (mindful of the bandage) she slips into a bathrobe and exits the steamy bathroom, expecting Sawyer to be asleep already. 

But instead, he has set up a blanket on the thin couch and he is sitting with his head bowed. He doesn't even attempt to hide what he is doing, and her heart rises to her mouth as she recognizes the faded paper of Sawyer's letter she had thought he had long lost, but had never forgotten. Seeing it here, in the normalcy of this plush little cabin is somehow worse than the body blow it had been to read it for the first time. On that wild, windswept beach two months ago, it had shaken her badly. And that was on a deserted Island, where the object of his poisonous wrath could never be harmed, where they had reverted to a more primal way of life, hunting, tracking, killing to stay alive…

Here, the sight of that tattered scrap of paper is alien. As the diffused lamplight glances off the satin sheets and ornate furnishings, it seems like a foul blotch of madness on this otherwise beautiful normalcy. Because watching how he holds it with reverent care, seeing how his brow has furrowed into cavernous worry lines, she knows the letter has lost none of its all-consuming power over him.

She sinks to the bed, its mattress springy and so welcome, as she considers his form. He has given her no hint of acknowledgement, no sign he has even registered her presence, and she doesn't have the first clue of how to break this silence.

The letter sits in his rough hands, its surface worn fluffy from thirty years riding his in his pocket. He has not read it in nearly a month, and as Sawyer waited for Kate to quit hogging the damn shower, he succumbed to visons of going in there, yanking the door open and letting a repeat of last night ensue. He knew it could.

But his mind turned against him, as it has a habit of doing, and instead of following her into the shower to soap up and forget about their troubles for a blissful half hour, he had succumbed again to the lousy voice in his head which had not remained on the Island, had followed him here, stopping him in his tracks with the killer words,

_It wasn't meant to be you. I didn't ask you to be there._

Sawyer is reverting. He can feel it, as he sits suffering Kate's miserably expectant stare on the side of his face. He has _chosen_ to read the letter, chosen the tried and tested route of self-flagellation which he knows so well, over her. And as the letter had brought forth the demons in him, they had blackened out all the good in his psyche, as they always did – and he tells himself now that he _enjoys_ smushing the roots of this fledgling relationship into mush. It hurts far less to crush something as dangerous as love into dust, break it with his own hands, before it can break of its own accord.

But knowing all this don't make that stare of hers any easier to take. This is a perverted test of faith for him – he wants to displaying this article of his destruction before her, show her that he does not plan on changing… and if she can handle that, well… then maybe they ain't so dead in the water. Maybe there's a chance…

She cocks her head finally, and sighs. "What are you doing on the couch?"

He looks up to her in exhausted confusion, with eyes that warn _do not jerk me around at this hour. _With a shake of her head, she pulls the towel from her hair, and sighs "Come to bed, Sawyer."

She moves to the bed, and switches off the main light. The room is plunged into semi-darkness, and Sawyer only stares at her from the couch, as she blazes in a halo of lamplight.

* * *

Stepping into the red hall, little Jimmy thinks first that his mommy is playing a game. Red is all over the walls like party decorations and she is lying on the floor. Is she playing sleeping lions? He can play that game too. Maybe that's what daddy's doing on his bed! And maybe they ain't _moving_ because that means they'd beat him and they'd win the _game_ – ! 

Little Jimmy's little hands clap over his mouth as he stifles giggles. It's his birthday tomorrow, maybe his mommy is starting the party early! He loves it when mommy plays games with him.

Biting back the giggles he steps over the red paint _(it's everywhere! Mommy really went to town with the decorations, but he liked the banners with tigers he had last year better)_ and he kneels carefully by her side. She has her eyes closed and she's very still. James tickles her and explodes into a fit of chortles because Mommy _always_ laughs when Jimmy tickles her side and he eagerly waits for her to jump up and give him hell for cheating.

But Mommy doesn't laugh, just stays still. _She's good at this! _Jimmy doesn't understand the game, but he's excited Mommy wants to play past his bedtime and he lies next to her, careful not to get the paint on his clothes. Mommy would be mad then.

After a minute of playing sleeping lions, Jimmy cracks open an eye to see if Mommy has moved yet or if Daddy's come out his room. Nothing has changed, and he doesn't understand. Why hasn't Mommy tickled him back? She never lets him get away with pulling stunts like that.

Looking back, Sawyer always wishes he'd never hugged his mom that last time. Because as little Jimmy Ford wraps his arms around his Mommy, he realizes

_Mommy's cold_

And when she doesn't hug him back, he is sad. Doesn't Mommy love him anymore? Why is she just lying there, why doesn't she jump up at him and scare him? His head on her chest, he shakes her a little,

"Mommy, come _on..."_ But Mommy doesn't move. Is she mad because she told him to stay under the bed no matter what? Jimmy shakes her harder, "_Mommy_, Daddy's asleepin' on my bed and there's a _monster_ under there Mommy, make it go away, I don't like it, it's gonna _eat_ _daddy_ –"

And when Mommy doesn't seem worried that daddy could have been eaten by the monster under the bed, Jimmy pulls back, scared… and he sees his arms, covered in red paint.

He doesn't understand. _This isn't a fun game. _

And then he looks back to his Mommy and he sees her side is all red. Lots of red, and it's not paint.

_Mommy isn't playing a game. _

Jimmy shakes her hard. "Mommy!" her head bounces on the floor, and Jimmy feels his dinner coming up, "Mommy wake up! Mommy I'm scared _Mommy wake up please --!"_

* * *

Crashing back into the darkness, Sawyer bites back a yell. As his head spins and his ears ring on red alert, his heart crumbles in his chest as the horrific hangover of that reoccurring dream hits him. It has not been this vivid in years, it has not hit him this hard, so hard that he can barely drag air enough into his lungs to breathe – 

He stumbles up out of the bed, throwing the sheets back and dragging his backpack on, he stumbles out onto their deck, blindly.

The day is dawning bright red overhead, and as he shakily lights the last of his stale cigarettes he pilfered from The Door, he sends his feverish gaze out over the cool crashing waves, and sets to work at pushing the pain down, the unbelievable pain…

_Mom, you'd be heartbroken if you could see me now. What I've become –_

Soft footsteps pad behind him, and he shivers in dread anticipation, as a hand rests over his. It is only when he looks down, he realizes he has been gripping onto the sea flecked railings with white knuckle fists.

"What's up? And don't tell me it's the bed. That's my angle, remember?"

"Wanted a smoke. Maybe I remembered your track record with beds n' fire?"

She bites her lip and looks out towards the dawn, over the rushing sea. The wind lashes her dark locks against her white robe, and she is waiting for him to tell her.

Any other night, he would have been able to shove it down. Any other night, he would have slept, he wouldn't be worn down and tired with a throbbing chip in his skull, and any other night he wouldn't be standing on a pristine deck with Kate's hand on his, feeling like his old wounds were threatening to tear open again.

"So… you blew your bed up, huh?" She looks to him, eyes immediately shuttered and defensive, and he holds her gaze, trying to gauge her and whether he can actually say this, admit what he did…

"I set mine on fire."

She looks to him miserably, waiting for the punchline, so he continues. "Trust me, you wouldn't have wanted Transformers sheets when I was through with 'em. They don't look so pretty burned to hell with a headless corpse bleeding all over 'em."

He watches her closely, dreading the effect his words will have on her but his words keep coming, he can't stop them. "I got a can of gas." Bitterness creeps into his voice and his words are grossly sarcastic now, "My Daddy always said never play with fire, _but_ _hell_, he'd just blown his head off, so I guess I didn't feel like listenin' to him."

Kate's eyes flare with immense pain, and he hates it, wants to shake it out of her. So he continues, knowing he is pushing her away so hard, and utterly helpless to stop himself, "We'd do the same thing every year. Douse the fall leaves with gas, flick a match, and have a big ole' bonfire on our craphole yard. Daddy said, this is what happens when the leaves die Jimmy, you burn em' all away, make way for new ones."

And he forces himself to meet his eyes, craving the disgust which deserves to be there, yearning with all his blackened soul for her rejection, "So that's what I did. Covered him in gas and flicked a match. Fire ate him up real fast."

Kate stares at him in dull horror, eyes shuttered with grief and he knows he has to finish, has to ram the point home. _He has to test her. _

"Six years old Kate. Six years old, and after I dropped a match on my Daddy's chest I walked into the hall, closed the door and played sleeping lions with my momma until the fire fighters booted the door down. Now do y'understand what I'm saying to you?"

Her gaze drops, and he moves in close, bringing her face to his, and she can't look at him anymore. The raw pain in him is too much to bear, because she fears she can never heal it, never make it okay.

"Now some people are born bad Kate. I truly believe that, just bad blood, and bad news through and through. It's _inherent_, it's in everything you are and everything you do, and you bring down _everybody_ _you_ _know_…"

His eyes shine, "…_and there's… nothing… you… can… do… to stop it._ Because it's what you _are_." The utter finality of his words stings her. She doesn't believe she has ever felt someone describe her own private hell so perfectly, as he finishes with a haunted gaze, _"It's in your blood."_

He tries to drag his hand from her –

But she holds on. His eyes widen in surprise, as he looks down…

She takes a shaky breath and digs deep down… where she finds it in her to meet his eyes and confess finally,

"If it's in your blood, then it's in mine too."

He only looks down at her in disbelief as she finally says, "We can't help the blood we were born with… and if it _is_ bad…" Her steady gaze anchors him, "Then there's nothing we can do but try."

"Try…" He echoes in a whisper,

"Try to change." She says softly_, "That's all we can do."_

* * *

**Okay, so I'm taking a leap of faith and carrying on here... hope you like it - and if you do, TELL ME! Please be kind enough to review :)**


	23. Lost at Sea

**Chapter 23**

**Lost at sea**

She feels peaceful. Even deep in sleep, as she knows she is, she feels a sense of order restored to its rightful balance somehow. The sense of miles passing underfoot reaches her in her reverie, installs an innate feeling she could never explain of making progress even in her dreams, like some primal urge in her to run is finally being satiated which she has been suppressing for months.

Sheets. Smooth and soft as purest silk, sleek over her legs and balled by her chin.

_Where am I?_

In Kate's drifting journey to consciousness from blissful sleep, her mind immediately works on these minute, inconsequential scraps of information, cranking back into time worn gear. And as she rises into wakefulness with a comfort she has not known in months, she cracks open eyes to see rays of sunlight blurring through drapes and glancing golden off of glistening bottles, lined on the bar…

Bar…?

Then it comes rushing back to her with a clarity which washes away the blissful moments she had enjoyed upon waking. The events of the past few days come hurtling back with lurid glee – the experiments, getting away from the Staff, leaving the Island… _and leaving Jack._

The sorrow cramps her tight and catches her unawares in her early morning state, defenceless and blindsided by the sudden _real_ finality of it all, and it's hard to breathe suddenly. Jack never made the boat. Jack will never sleep in sheets this soft, Jack will never see the sight of the Island disappearing on the horizon, never see the real world again. Jack will eternally remain on the Island, entombed in her memories; he will always remain out of her reach, forever unattainable.

Sitting groggily she gazes about at the room. Through her just woken eyes, it had seemed like heaven on earth – but now it seems cold, the light too bright, too hard. Shivering, she pulls on the bathrobe and wraps it about her tightly, as though this gesture can protect her from her own mind working on continual, exhausting overdrive. And as she turns, she sees the drapes blowing in the wind. In moments, she understands the bottles, the cold.

_He's left you Katherine, in the middle of the night he slunk away and now you're on your OWN -- _

Stepping out onto the chilly, sea sprayed deck, the drop in degrees shocks her. The warmth of the Island seems a long distant memory. Burrowing deeper into the fleecy robe, she steels herself against the icy air, and then stops with a start.

Crumpled with a towel covering him, Sawyer sleeps on a wet sun lounger in a crushed suit jacket. In those moments, as she watches him sleeping in that stolen jacket with that blue and white flecked towel providing feeble protection against the cold, she sees him fully. Her mind has always returned to that letter of his, and the fact that he was reading it again last night, _is still holding it now,_ only strengthens the image in her mind further…

… because for the first time, she sees in him, in those fleeting moments, the child he was _before_ _his parents died_, and maybe the man he _could_ have been had those events never occurred. Because as he sleeps, Sawyer's face is ironed of all worry lines and furrows. It is fascinating, like seeing someone ten years younger… like seeing _James._ He appears open lost of all his defences. If she didn't know him better, it would almost seem as though was not hiding anything, had no dark secrets which were slowly devouring him every minute of every day…

But under her gaze, he stirs. And in the moments before he wakes, she actually _watches_ a physical change come over his face. He grimaces and swallows heavily, and all those years of resentment and living only with murder in mind swell back into his features.

As he flutters his eyes open with a pissed off scowl at his surroundings, he slowly focuses, and finds her standing over him. And although those piercing aqua eyes register surprise, they don't back down. They never do.

"You stayed out here all night…" Her tone is more a disheartened statement than any real question.

"Give the gal the jackpot…" He mumbles croakily, shrugging the towel off himself in disgust, like he has a good mind to burn the damn thing for being so useless at keeping him warm.

"Y'know if you wanted a blanket Sawyer, you just had to ask." She mimics her words from The Door to him, hoping to inject good spirits into this conversation, but there is still something distant and poignant about him, sitting there slumped in his ruined jacket and sodden clothes. It affects her in a way she never expects, and she realises the connotation of her words, that he may think she is coming _on_ to him --

"And I told you –" He calls over the wind with that half-hearted sparkle in his eyes, "— Go to hell."

He gives her automatic dimples which fade a little as he finishes softly, "Ain't nothing's changed since then, huh Eskimo Joe…?"

She meets his eyes, knowing that although everything around them is changing that nothing between them really _has_… even the love they made seems distant and faraway now, left behind with Jack on the Island. And the words they throw at one another never seem to come out right, be they arguments, insults or come-on's. Just because the physical barrier between them has been broken, doesn't mean the emotional one has been breached, and Kate wonders with a bleak feeling if it ever truly can be.

"No," She forces a smile, voice carried away by the cold wind, "I guess not."

He gives a barely perceivable nod, and tilts to look back over the rushing steely grey ocean beneath them, crashing in waves which reminds Kate absurdly of tearing paper.

"But we can try." She says as he stands, "I meant it. I meant what I said last night --"

He immediately bristles and looks away. She only gazes at his wind blasted form, instinctively feeling that he wants her to get the hell away from him, knows that she is treading on a minefield here… but a niggling feeling eats away at her, wont give her peace. He hadn't been the same since they'd slept together – and as she looks back, she finally thinks she knows why.

So she sinks to the lounger opposite him, and contemplates the gunmetal grey clouds which mirror from the thrashing waves awhile, sorting through the words in her mind.

"Will you help me?" She says in a calm voice.

He only looks down into her swirling toffee apple eyes, and says, "How?"

Wordlessly, she lifts her hair onto her left shoulder, revealing the bandage… and meets his gaze steadily. He only meets her eyes with a look of mild horror.

"They can't stay on forever." She says softly.

He brings his gaze back to her, then away again… and with practised precision he folds the letter into neat quarters and places it inside his shirt pocket, over his heart.

As he turns to face her, she meets his gaze as his hands tiredly roam through the tangle of her hair, and rooting her with an iron gaze, he gently unwraps the pink bandage. When he drops it in disgust overboard, she only looks at him. Can't tear her eyes away, eyes wide…

"_Is it bad…?"_

"No…" He breathes softly.

"Don't patronize me," She says fiercely, _"Is it bad --"_

"No!" He insists, confounded, "Can't see a damn thing…!"

Her eyes only blaze into his a moment. "Come here." She orders.

"_What --" _She tilts his head around, and gently unwraps the bandage from his head. As she does so, heart pounding crazily, she tries to joke,

"Hair's growing real quick, Sawyer. You sure it wasn't hormone implants?"

"Real funny, Jim Carey." He grits nervously, "Like you could use any _more_ --"

She rips off the last of the bandage and as he yells in surprised pain, she keeps his head tilted…

"There's nothing _there_…" She breathes in shock. "No bump... no _nothing_."

"What did I tell you..." He sighs, rubbing his head, "But you had to tear the _rest_ of my hair out to find out for yourself."

She shoots him a look and he rolls his eyes. So close, she hears her words before she realizes she's actually saying them. "What I told you before… back on the Island?" She ventures, steeling herself for the worst, "When I said I never meant to hurt you… I _meant_ that, Sawyer."

He shoots her a warning look, and she knows she is right, knows she's is getting dangerously close to home. "Ain't nothing left to say 'bout that night, Papoose –"

"Are you serious?" Her eyes pierce his with their mockery, "You've hardly looked at me since. If that's how you want this to be --"

"Quit it Kate." His eyes flare angrily as he jerks to his feet, "I mean it, I don't wanna talk about –"

"Maybe I do --" She pulls him around, and will not let him off the hook this time,

"Maybe we _need_ to –"

"And maybe you don't know when to quit!" He hisses in frustration, snatching his arm away like she had burned him, "Jesus, what do you even _want_ from me?"

"What are you talking about!"

And she sees something in him break… as he leans in close, he is raw.

"Look, you loved the Doc. I _get_ it. And I know how cut up you must be about him, 'caus believe it or not, _I am too."_ His voice fills with hopeless rage, "And I know it wasn't meant to be me you did the demon dance with, I know I should a gone down instead of him, _I know what we did felt all wrong to you…"_

She only looks up at him in shock as he clenches his teeth wearily and grits, "Well it felt right to _me_. And I swear if you make me regret it Kate, I'll never forgive you."

He turns and moves inside leaving her reeling. The fact that he had just admitted what she had both feared and longed to hear, that he had no regrets about what they'd done brings a warm flush to her cold cheeks as she follows him in, watches as he stuffs his things in his backpack… and a cold chill creeps through her.

_He's going._

"Where is this coming from?" She demands in disbelief, "Did I ever say it felt wrong, did I ever say _anything_ like that, once!"

"Yes --" He hisses, and now he won't even look at her, just focuses on frantically packing, "You _did_. And even if you didn't, I know. I've _always_ known. The hell could ever possibly compete with Saint Jack? Christ, I was rank outsider when he was in life, and now he's a damn ghost, I still ain't got a hope in hell!"

Some protective urge Kate could never stop rises in her suddenly, and she finds herself defending her dead friend fiercely, "Maybe he was a more decent man than you. Maybe I care because he was kind, strong, maybe I care because when he knew somebody was upset, he had the capacity to show a little _sensitivity --_"

She has closed in on him, and can see from the way he shoots her a stricken look that her last words hurt him, but she is unable to stop herself finishing…

"Maybe I care because he was _good_ Sawyer… and he could see the good in _me_."

But instead of anger, which she had expected, Sawyer only stares down at her sadly. Because if she really believed that, she wasn't as smart as he'd given her credit for.

"All he saw was a broken damn doll he had to fix Kate. And you _know_ it."

He goes back to packing and he can feel her furious stare on the back of his neck.

"I'm not doing this with you." The angry resolution in her voice drives him insane, like she knows him so well, like she's got all the answers, "Why do you always have to turn everything around, why do you want me to hate you? I won't _ever_ hate you. So you might as well stop trying to make me, okay?"

And something inside snaps at this remark. These words lodge somewhere private and painful,

_If she knew you, really knew you James, she'd hate your guts_

"You're supposed to be _smarter_ than this!" He yells out and suddenly he is skinny Jimmy Ford, six years old again, stamping his foot and screaming his heart out, "You're not supposed to _fall_ for my act, you're supposed to see _through_ me, you're supposed to _see what I'm really like!"_

He turns away darkly, "I've screwed women like you and left them with shit, I'm a goddamn _louse_, I prey on the weak, the fucking soft headed cash cows with more money than sense and an eye for a pretty face. I stole, I bribed and it didn't mean shit to me, I _thrived_ on it. As I screwed them I'd be checking out the diamonds on their rings, seeing if they were real, seeing how much I could take 'em for. Everything was a con. You _make_ 'em fall in love with you. You work 'em for _money_. _That's the only way to play the game."_

She is staring at him in steely anger, "This isn't a _game_ anymore --"

"You still don't _get_ it!" He cries furiously, "It never _was_ a game with you! Jesus Christ, you drive me outta my _mind!_ I'm telling it to you straight and you _still_ don't see!" He hikes his backpack high and gets in close, feels her breath hot on his face, as he finally gets it out,

"I ain't playing you no more Kate! But you're _still_ falling for it, you're still getting _conned_ –

"You're not making any sense --"

"Because if you feel any ounce of compassion for what happened to me, or pity me for what I did, what I became, you're even more stupid than the rest of them." The way her eyes widen and flare with pain which she can't hide tears him up, but also strengthens his dark certainty, feeds the monster in him, as he finishes…

"The fact you want me anywhere near you proves my point, and that you thought for a second this is ever gonna work really kills me."

Suddenly her face lines into a sad smile. "You can't stand this, can you? The fact that you can't make me hate you. That you have no control over this… that nothing you can say will push me away –"

"Don't bank on it –" He pushes past her. She looks after him as her smile fades, and as she asks the timeworn question, she is struck by a sense of deja-vu. The maddening games are still the same, guns or none.

"_Why do you have to do this…"_

He turns in the doorway, wrapping his coat around him and sighs tiredly.

"Because I _chose_ this road, Kate. I made my goddamn bed the second I flicked that match on my Pa. I don't know what in hell you're looking for outta me, but I ain't got it to give you –"

He opens the door. "Where are you going?" Kate pales.

"This ain't gonna work. You're driving me insane."

"Sawyer --" She says and he stops unwillingly. Forces himself to be the bastard and look into her eyes as she says, "Good luck."

He recognises this for what it is… _a_ _goodbye_. The fact she is letting him go, after all they'd been through to get this far is yet more fuel to the monster in him and his lip curls in disgust as he spits grimly,

"_Yeah_."

* * *

Sawyer wanders the decks, and in his daze finds himself in the annoyingly merry drugstore. Lord, he remembers how much he hates grocery shopping. Why is there so much choice? How in hell is he supposed to know what to get? He picks up a set of bright red lacy lingerie and has a mental image of tearing them off Kate with his teeth –

"Didn't think red was your colour, man." Brays a self satisfied voice, and gritting his teeth, supremely pissed off at being yanked out of his little fantasy, Sawyer turns to see Hurley appraising him with a smirk and knowing eyes.

"Guess my secret's out." He growls.

"You're not gonna fit into a size 4." Hurley chuckles and Lord, Sawyer thinks, this boy makes paint look smart.

"And what size are you!" Sawyer retorts, "Parachute?"

Hurley giggles good naturedly, and claps his shoulder, "I'm glad you're okay, dude."

-- as a shout rings through the god awful elevator music ridden air,

"No _way_ man!"

Sawyer turns with a sinking gut and why, it's his favourite lemming, Charlie. The annoying runt bounds up, eyes sparkling with excitement, tugging a weighty basket.

"We thought you were bloody dead! That mean Kate and Jack are here too! What happened in the jungle?"

"Yeah," Hurley says, amusement fading, "When I left you guys, I thought you were all goners, y'know? Gagged and bagged was so not cool…"

"Didn't see the others," Sawyer lies, stomach turning, "I made a break for it."

"You left them _behind_?" Charlie says in disbelief, and Hurley is watching him closely, with an expression Sawyer recognises - disgust.

"Hey," He snaps, "Out there, it was everyone for themselves. I saw my chance, and I took it. I don't lay my head on the block for nobody."

"So they're still there…?" Hurley says sadly.

"The hell should I know?" Sawyer sighs, "And I don't care!"

"Just thought you and Kate had a thing going, y'know?" Hurley says in a small voice, "I can't believe you'd just leave her there."

"Believe it, Lardo," He grits. Charlie shrugs, picking up a pack of diapers from the shelf with pointed irritation. Desperate to change the subject, Sawyer gestures to his basket. "So I'm guessing Mamasita took your sorry ass back into the fold, huh?"

Upon mention of Claire, Charlie's eyes light up, and he immediately forgets his irritation as his mood swings all the way to super happy.

"She's being sick bloody everywhere! She's pretty amazing really - she managed to projectile _vomit_ from the shower right into the toilet earlier, no word of a friggin' lie!"

"Thank the Lord love's blind, Charlie." Sawyer smiles in a deliberately smartass way.

Blind to it, Charlie beams suddenly. "Hey! I wrote her a love song last night. You wanna be the first to hear my new no.1?"

"No – please – " Sawyer falters --

-- too late. Because in a nasal, choirboy voice Charlie croons, "_Claaaire_, you're always there. Claire, with you're golden hair. _Yeah!_ Claire, Claire, you are so fair, Claire you are my air, and the --" Momentarily forgetting the words he falters, "The _chair_, where I sit Claire, Oh Claire, you got me snared, and I swear, _Claire_, I'll always be there…."

And with hand movements abound, Charlie reaches up like he is declaring the second coming, and finishes in falsetto, _'…CLAAAAAAAAIRE!' _

Hurley claps dutifully, and Sawyer is lost for words. This is beyond torture.

"Claire's your chair, huh? My, you're quite the lyricist."

"I'll bet she really digged it, dude." Hurley counters, trying to buffer Sawyer's sarcasm.

"She loved it!" Charlie beams proudly. Then his forehead creases, as he remembers, "Then… she went green and threw up."

Hurley chokes back chortles of laughter and Charlie shoots him an indignant look. "Sorry." Hurley chokes, holding up his bag of nuts as an excuse, "Peanut. _Wrong tube_ – I'm gonna pay for these."

"Wait up, I'm coming –" Charlie turns back to Sawyer, "Listen, you should stop by the bar on deck 6 later, man, the old gang are getting together to parrr-tay!"

"I got drinks." Sawyer motions to his basket, complete with an array of alcohol, ladies underwear, cigarettes and Playboys, "And _friends"_ he can't resist, winking at the magazines.

Charlie nods, "Well okay. But it's gonna be wild man! Me n' Hurley are gonna drink as much absinthe as we can then go skinny dipping."

"Charlie," Sawyer gestures to a massive stick of candy, "Rather gouge my eyes out with this candycane than see Hurley in his birthday suit, but thanks all the same."

Charlie turns back to Hurley, and as they move off, he flails his Driveshaft CD's about which he is raving about. "Top ten! Top bloody ten man! I'm telling you, when they find out I'm back I'm gonna be rich. _Rich and bloody famous…!"_

He turns to pay with the last of the cash from his good ole stolen coat. Once the cashier is done and he gathers his stuff, trying to re-capture the image of Kate in her red underwear, he shoots a glare to the sound system which has just cranked on _'You aaaaaaaall everybody!', _as Charlie turns excitedly.

"Hey man, check it _out!"_

When from nowhere a voice calls; "Mr James Ford?"

Charlie looks to him inquisitively as Sawyers eyes widen in shock at the name from his past, _a name he no longer has any right being called –_

"Mr Ford!"

"Who the bloody hell is he _talkin'_ to, man?" Charlie scoffs, as Sawyer turns, dread fear rising in his chest and slowly boiling his blood…

… to see two FBI agents striding towards him quickly, _"James Ford --"_

"What!" Charlie laughs them off, waving his arms, "That's not his _name_, you got the wrong guy!"

Sawyer stares at them as they corner him, literally feels the world fall out from beneath his feet and all he can think, the one single thought which repeats on a maddening loop in his mind, is that _they've found Kate, and it's all over. _

* * *

**PLEASE REVIEW!** I know this is a short chapter, but I promise if you stick with me, things are going to get very interesting in chapters to come… 

As a side note, Cait – I haven't forgotten the broom closet! Its just this chapter would have been too long if I'd fitted it in here! Its definitely in the next one though 

Anyone else got suggestions, let me know! I NEED to hear from you! YES YOU! Right now! 


	24. Oceanic Princess

**Chapter 24**

**Oceanic Princess**

The walls are closing in.

Ever since Sawyer left her here, to face things alone, time seems to have come to a halt. Kate has always prided herself on her self-sufficiency, which manifests itself in every aspect of who she is – it is the competitiveness in everything she does, the stubbornness in every argument which prevents her from showing her feelings, her resolute determination never to show weakness – and it is the dogged _determination_ to survive on the run which has sustained her so long. She has grown to be self-sufficient, because she has _had_ to.

She knows she isn't the same now. She knows she is regressing, feels that as her surroundings change daily, that she slips ever further away from the changed Kate of the Island, back to who she used to be – Kate the fugitive, out only to survive.

But right here, in these moments where she sits in the thrumming cabin, she feels different. The tentative friendships she had made on the island, all the things she had taken for granted now seem so precious – and they all changed tiny parts inside of her. Delivering Claire's baby, cutting Charlie down from Ethan's trap, tracking with Jack, seeing horses, boars, and dead people under waterfalls… they have all strengthened her. She does not feel weak…

But she feels like she has been given a glimpse of how full her life could be. And looking back, she is struck by an incredible sense of hollowness… that now she is finally away from the Island, as she had spent long nights praying to be, it is not what she had expected. She is now stuck wondering if Aaron made it safely, if Michael had found Walt, along with a hundred other thoughts about all the other castaways she had been lost with… and it hits her how empty her life had been when she had been thinking only of herself, on the run. Isolated and alone… as she is now.

Suddenly, her head is buzzing. Her stomach clenches, shifts about… God, she can't get sea-sick now. Not when she needs all her wits about her, and not now that there is no one left to share this burden with…

Stepping out onto the deck, she lets the bracing sea wind roll over her, bringing her senses back and grounding her. She wonders restlessly how long it will be until they reach their destination. This looks like a US Cruiser, from what she can make out, and she wishes wholly that she has some idea of what direction they are going. She hates the fact that she has no control over where this boat will take her, that she is at the mercy of fate until they dock wherever they will –

"_Kate?"_

That familiar voice jars her more than she ever thought it could. And as she spins, she comes to look upon a person standing on the adjacent private deck that she hasn't seen in weeks.

"_Claire…" _

The two Feds who have cornered Sawyer in their plainclothes suits flash their badges at him, before declaring themselves Callahan and Malone. Sawyer's mind immediately goes into overdrive on the details -- Callahan is coffee skinned and older, a grey suit that looks expensive, and tired bags beneath his eyes. He wouldn't give him much trouble. But Malone, he worries Sawyer. The guy is short and stocky as a damn pit-bull, and he can literally smell the rookie in him, the rookie who is hell bent on closing his first case.

"Having a nice trip?" Callahan smiles mirthlessly.

"Swell." Sawyer grits as Malone swaggers closer,

"Well isn't this a turn up for the books." Malone beams callously, with such smugness Sawyer has to clench his fists to stop himself punching him. "Here's us thinking you were dead!"

"How'd you guys know my name?" He says, stalling for time whilst he planned his way out of here.

"Bald guy over in the exercise pen?" Callahan sighs in a world-weary voice, and Sawyer turns to look out the window onto the deck where a fitness class is taking place. Amidst the gaggle of leotard clad pensioners and middle aged women, Locke is engrossed in lunges. It's like parallel parking in an alternate universe, as the cop finishes, "He gave us a manifest of who was on the plane."

Sawyer gets the impression that although these smug sons-of-bitches think they know it all, the beauty of this lil moment is… _they don't know who he is._ Or what he's done… he almost laughs out loud. At least, he would have done, if he didn't have the sinking feeling that this wasn't about him, at all. Kate haunts him, even when he has left her behind. She invades his dreams, has taken up permanent residence in his thoughts, and now, the damn woman manages to influence his life when she ain't even _in_ it anymore.

"How come you didn't register with the crew?" Callahan finishes, going through the motions boredly. "How did you gain passage?"

"Well I kinda hoped Oceanic would pick up the bill for this lil' ride," Sawyer sighs, still stalling, "Seeing as their last attempt at getting me home and dry exploded and left me half dead on a desert Island for two months. And I _did_ register with the crew," He slips a wink to the bulldog faced cop as he puts his plan into action, _"Joelle_. Deck six. Registered with her pretty good… if y'know what I mean."

Callahan raises his eyebrows with a look of horror as the pug ugly Malone gets the hump. "Anyone put anything in your luggage without your knowledge?"

Sawyer slits his eyes, unable to help himself. Christ, this Malone could be out-witted by a jar of marshmallow fluff. "I look like I got any luggage smartass? And if it was without my _knowledge_, how would I know?"

Callahan jumps in before Malone can defend himself, "We're trying to track down a certain woman –"

Here it comes, Sawyer braces himself, and watches the cop produce a mug shot, "Katherine Austen. She was on the flight when it went down with a State Marshal. Do you recognise this picture?"

He takes the picture, feigns interest. "She's a fox! Man, I wish I did."

"Look _again."_ Malone grits, and Sawyer is certain he is grating on his nerves, "Think hard. She could have used an alias, perhaps cut or changed her hair."

Sawyer squints at the picture. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three…

"No can do." He cracks a blatantly smartass grin, unable to help himself. But then, something strikes him. Looking at that picture, he suddenly realizes he probably knows no more about exactly who _Katherine Austen _is than these creeps… and the thought sits uncomfortably in his stomach, heavily on his (normally nonexistent) conscience. Maybe they can enlighten him a little…

"Why's she gotcha feathers ruffled boys? What she do, skim the charity basket in church?"

Callahan is folding away his notepad, obviously sick of Sawyer as he says in a clipped tone, "I'm afraid it's much more serious than that."

Really?" Sawyer feigns interest. Maybe Shaft knows when he's being goaded, but Dr Clouseau here walks right into it -- because to Sawyer's amusement the podgy idiot bristles slightly, puffs out his pigeon chest.

"As it happens, she's wanted for numerous crimes, and is considered extremely dangerous."

"Okay, that's about it -- " Callahan tries to intercede, but Sawyer sees and opening and rides with it --

"What, harmless looking stripling of a gal like that?" He lets his smile widen into a shit-eater of a grin, "Hell, only danger I see there is to my bedsprings."

The cops look disgusted in him, and roll their eyes – _exactly what he wants_. They are writing him off, deducing him unworthy of any more of their time or fraying patience – and just as Callahan is looking to leave, Malone leans in and snarls with a self satisfied smirk,

"Might wanna be careful in that bed, pal. Last sap she left in bed died in nasty, _nasty_ circumstances. She left the gas on. Flicked a match… and the whole house went up."

Sawyer forces himself to laugh flippantly, and the cop laughs with him, "Yeah… _barbequed her stepfather who was dreaming away in bed."_

Just hearing these words does something to him. The laughter dies in his throat, he can't force it up. For a moment, Sawyer can't quite understand the true meaning of Malone's flippant words, all comprehension slips through his fingers… and then he remembers.

_I blew mine up_

He had known she was telling him the truth in those moments around that faraway campfire, but Lord, he hadn't thought it _through_, what she meant. He hadn't thought that she had killed somebody in the process… _her own stepfather. _Christ, this woman has more issues than he ever thought…

"So," Malone brays smugly, "Appearances can be deceptive. She might not look like the murdering sort, but believe me, we've tracked her a long time… and if there ever was a woman with murder in her heart, you're looking right at her --" And he scoffs down at the picture, "Hell, look at her. Looks nervous as a whore in church!"

Fire sears through Sawyer instantly, and he actually draws blood as he bites his tongue. How he forces down the acid retorts, he'll never know, just locks his knees and clenches his fists ever tighter --

And Callahan is jabbing something at him,

"You wanna look one last time?" The guy's eyes pierce Sawyer in a way he doesn't like. Dutifully Sawyer looks again, and sees Kate's hunted, cornered face, the stark lights in the mug shot making her look wild, indecipherable…

Right now, if he denies he knows her… is it really a lie?

"No." He says, aware he is losing his swagger, but somehow unable to maintain this charade much longer. It has turned personal, it saps his strength, and he shakes his head… _"No, I don't know her at all."_

"She probably died in the crash." Callahan hands him a card, "Here's my number just in case. You happen to remember anything, anything at all we could go on, you be sure to use it."

And for once, Sawyer can't think of a remark to send him on his merry damn way with. Because just when he thought he'd made his choice, just when he'd told himself life on the Island was over and he was going home, back to his old ways, something else came up to throw a spanner in the works.

He loses track of how long he sits out on deck for, going over it. He shoulds stay the hell away from her. Not just because of the mess she makes of his heart and mind, but because of the very real fact that if the cops were at all suspicious of him, they could well decide to tail him. And if they caught him with her, his cover would be blown sky high.

But he has to go back and warn her… just because whatever they had is dead in the water, doesn't mean he isn't worried sick about her, doesn't mean that he will not at least give her a heads up to what is coming her way…

Every moment he spends out here is another moment they could be closing in on her without her even knowing. But he can't bring himself to move. He'd always had too much pride -- knowing what he has to do and actually doing it are two very different things.

Suddenly his head erupts in spikes of pain so strong that stars explode behind his eyes. His hands fly to his head as he gasps in pain, and his stomach clenches tight – as the voices return, soft and oh so reasonable, like they are drifting into his deepest soul from very far away…

_You don't help people Jimmy. It's not in your nature._

Sawyer's eyes fly open. Henry and Dharma must have gotten the Staff back up and running again – because it's starting over again. The voices are back…

A furious whimper escapes him as he rakes his hands over his head. He was a master at denial, and when he had pulled the bandage off and seen not so much as a scar there, he was quite happy to delude himself into believing that the entire episode in the Staff never happened. But now the voices are back. How! They left the Island, they got away… how long can this go on for? How far can they reach?

No'one can help him now. As he sits outside in a suit that isn't his on a ship he has conned his way aboard, he suddenly realizes the only other person in the whole world who understands this primal fear is Kate. And no matter how much they may both hate it, these implants bind them. And now as he sits on the wet, windy deck and battles with his own complex, Sawyer knows what he has to do…

Sawyer slips inside the room twenty minutes later, And although taking the long way around nearly killed him, he wanted to get back to her so bad, he had to make certain he wasn't being tailed –

And as he closes the door quietly behind him, he releases a pent up breath, unaware he was completely stressed out of his mind by this whole situation. And as he turns, he finds the room empty… she's gone.

He sinks to the edge of bed, not even bothering to check the bathroom or deck – he already knows she isn't in here. She wasn't expecting him back, so she would have probably already knocked him out if she was in here and thought him an intruder.

All the possibilities rush through his mind as he instantly fears the worst, feeling guilty and sorry – then she comes in. He looks to her as though he had never expected to see her again.

She jumps when she sees him sitting in the bright white window on the bed, and for a moment, the relief that exudes from both of them renders them speechless. No words are necessary. After a moment, Sawyer speaks more out of tradition than any real annoyance,

"Where the hell a you been…?"

"Claire's next door." She smiles softly, "We were catching up."

"You think its safe to be catching up with her? How d'you know you can trust her?"

"I delivered her baby, Sawyer," She says, "I think she's on the level."

Sawyer shrugs, then after a moment in a deliberately gruff voice he says, "How is Mini Me?"

Kate bites back a grin, goes to reply – when her eyes widen and she drops her backpack. Sawyer watches in astonishment as she darts into the toilet and slams the door.

"_Hey – "_ He stands, and after a moment raps on the door. Jesus, the gal's hurling chunks in there, "Hey Freckles, you okay!"

After a moment, the door opens, and when Kate appears in the doorway she averts her eyes, wiping her brow. She plasters on a shaky grin, "Seasickness. God, I always get it. My Dad used to take me out fishing when I was eight, even though he knew I'd get sick. He'd row us out right into the middle of the lake, and make me sit there. Told me I had to face it, and overcome it."

Surprised at her sudden openness about her past, Sawyer's heart flares protectively at the thought of an eight year old Kate being forced onto the water by her Dad. He objects, "Seasickness ain't exactly something you overcome!"

"Try telling him that." She smiles ruefully, dropping to the bed. For a moment, they just watch each other, trying to gauge where to go from here. They are both usually so good at this… so why isn't it working now?

"Having a nice trip?" He quips.

"Are you trying to be funny?"

"No." Sawyer forces a smile, watching her closely,

"_That's what the Feds just asked me."_

Kate blanches. To Sawyer's sadness, her face grows impossibly cold and remote as her time-worn barriers drop to protect her.

"The Feds?" She says with a calmness which damn near blows his mind.

"Yeah, the Fed's! You remember them? Natty dressers, kinda take instant dislikes to fugitives?"

She stands quickly, kneading her temple like she is getting a headache, "Please tell me you didn't get smart with them –"

He's suddenly sorry he told her -- he'd trade her anger at him over this deadly coldness any day. "Don't worry. They think you're still on the Island of Mystery. Or dead in the water." And he averts his eyes, lying, "It's me they were after."

"What? Why!"

Hell it wasn't even really a lie, was it? If the damn morons had done their homework, he'd be clapped in irons right now anyway. "Don't act so surprised." He smiles resignedly, "Hell, it ain't all about you Freckles."

"I knew it." She says, but there is a strange acceptance in her voice. "When I first met you, I knew you were in trouble…"

She has moved close to him, and he looks down, feeling his pulse quicken at their proximity, as he murmurs with weary sparkle, "Something you'd know all about…"

She stares up into him a moment, so close he can see the heartbeat skip in her throat… then her eyes drift past his and focus over his shoulder…

"What's in the bag?" She moves to the table where his bags are, "You brought food? Thank God, I'm starving --"

"Brought back supplies." He says, quickly regaining control as Kate rifles through the bag, her enthusiasm depleting when she sees his wares.

"Supplies?" She pulls out bottles of Jack Daniels and Bourbon, laughing; "Supplies for what, a stag night!"

"Hey," He defends himself, " I didn't exactly plan on coming back here myself –"

"So why did you?" She looks to him, her grin fading. He hates it when it fades like that…

Sawyer is indignant, "This is my damn room. You ain't railroading me out!"

"Get off your high horse Tex, you stole it remember!"

"Well you want out so badly, go steal your own!"

"Maybe I will."

"Fine!"

"Great."

"You get one with a bar, a hot-tub, and its own deck, and I'll eat my new hat."

She actually laughs. Her nose crinkles, and her eyes sparkle, and somehow, things are okay again. They are on safe territory, back in their well worn roles of antagonizing each other.

She pulls out a jumper from his bags and some more clothes. He hates this, hopes she don't read too much into this and immediately talks himself down, "Size might be off. I'm hopeless at guessing --"

"You bought these for me?" She looks up in surprise, then to cover how touched she is, gestures to the label. "Large? Sawyer, how large do I look to you?"

He's so grateful she didn't get all intense on him. Maybe that's why he likes her so much – because she knows when to keep things cool. As he slips out of his jacket and pulls on a hooded sweater he bought, he laughs, "Well I figured in case you'd hightailed it off someplace, at least I'd get some wear outta them."

She feels a smile warming her cheeks, "How did you afford these?"

"Now that'd be telling."

She pulls out red lingerie. His heart skips a beat, as he wonders how she'll react. _Come on,_ his mind scoffs_, this is Kate here, Amazonian Kate – she's gonna rip out your heart and shove it down your throat!_

Wincing, he braces himself… but Kate just raises her eyebrows, looking to him like he has gone slightly insane.

"Thought pink was your colour?"

"Damn," He sighs with a deliberate roll of his eyes, "How'd they get in there?"

"Sawyer, they're like whore's underwear --!"

"And your point is!" He shrugs -- and to his amazement, Kate throws back her head and _laughs_. That great, hearty, full damn body laugh which always gets him. And he feels the grin break out on his face too, her laughter is infectious, and it feels so good, so sweet –

Suddenly the TV set in the wall flickers on automatically and makes them jump. They turn to see a morning news bulletin read by two lunatics dressed in full sailor regalia.

"_A very fine evening to you campers, its 7pm and it's a beautiful evening out there -"_

"_Beautiful as in kinda grey and cold Ellis but what the hey -!"_

"_What the hey indeed Marsha, we got some evening news for you on board Oceanic Princess --"_

"Goddamn freak show," Sawyer mutters, moving to switch it off but Kate bounds in front of him, stopping him with a gesture –

"Sawyer, wait did they…_did they just say Oceanic?"_ Her eyes meet his in confusion, and they stare at the screen at a loss.

"…_survivors from our sister aircraft Oceanic 815 have all been recovered and are settling in well. Sadly a small number of fatalities have been confirmed among whom is brother and sister Shannon and Boone Rutherford, of the prestigious New York wedding chain, and Ana-Lucia Cortez, a cop –"_

"Prestigious wedding chain!" Sawyer scoffs, "Always knew that boy was gay as pink ink --"

"_Shhh --"_ Kate hisses as the newsreader smiles,

"_-- and Katherine Austin, who was being escorted back to the states by a US Marshall, also presumed dead on impact. In other news…"_

For a moment it is all Sawyer and Kate can do to stare at the screen. After a moment, Sawyer lets out a rush of breath and looks to her uneasily.

"Well… that's good, right? Means the Fed's have given up looking for you."

She turns to him with wide eyes, "Sawyer, they think I'm dead! This _isn't_ good. What's gonna happen when my Mom sees that report!"

Sawyer looks to her uneasily… "You can go find her when you get back and set her straight."

She looks away, and he has the sudden strong urge to wrap her in his arms. She looks cornered, hunted and alert all at once – and she turns on him. He sees the iron determination in her eyes and knows instinctively what's coming.

"Thanks for the heads up." She says, "And I'll pay you back for the clothes. If you leave me an address, I'll wire you the money once I get on my feet."

He only looks to her, and wishes she could know how desperately disappointed he was in her for this, how much it hurts when all his ineffective attempts at helping her fail time and time again.

"You're really gonna go it alone, huh?"

She looks away fiercely, and he sighs in frustration. He gathers himself a moment, knowing instinctively that his next words could make or break this situation…

"You don't have to do this, you know. I can help you. I can, I'll get you a fake ID, passport, bank cards – anything you need. I'll take you someplace safe…"

"There's noplace safe, Sawyer," She says, and she won't look at him, "All it takes is one sighting of me for them to be on my tail again. Don't make this any harder than it already is okay, I have to do this, and I have to do it _alone_ --"

"Will you listen to yourself?" He says in disbelief, giving it one last try, "You're gonna wake up in a cell tomorrow wishing you'd listened – that someone had made you see sense, while there was still time, but by then it'll be too _late_ --"

"It's my decision," She says softly, but with such cold determination that it prickles the hairs on his arms, "And I've made my choice."

He only looks to her, pleading with her to see sense… but she won't even meet his gaze. Squaring his jaw, he shakes his head and props his top hat beneath his arm with tired swagger. He moves towards the door, unable to bring himself to say goodbye again, when --

"Sawyer?"

He turns with a tiny, pitiful flash of hope, that she'll tell him to stay…

"Your address?" She says softly and it's like someone dumped a bucket of icy water over him. He deflates and then puffs his chest back up in forced indifference. And knowing he'll hurt her, but uncaring anymore, he grits,

"Forget it," He drags on suit jacket with a heavy heart, slinging his bag on his back. "Call it a _goodbye_ gift. And keep the room." He looks around, and says with pointed malice at the TV set where Callahan gives out information about her, _"You'll need it more than me."_

**PLEASE REVIEW ME! **

_It makes sooooo much difference hearing from you guys!_

_And I know things seem tough for them right now, but just trust me – the next chapter is one I know a lot of you have been waiting for! Things have a very strange way of working themselves out…_

_Thanks Bcat, Ravenmoon, all my regular lovelies who always let me know what they think. _

_And Cait? The next chapter is dedicated to YOU : D _


	25. Til Death do us part

**Chapter 25**

'**Till death do us part…**

Sawyer loses track of how long he stalks down the hallways, searching for a place to go but never finding it, because everywhere is full of people, chattering morons, and all he wants is peace out of the cold on deck…

"_Sawyer!" _

As he turns wearily, suddenly Sun ducks out of the room at the end of the hall. The little warm feeling that seeing a familiar face in this madness pisses him off. When did seeing Betty ever mean an ounce to him?

"Sawyer, are you okay?" She advances, dark almond eyes all shining concern, "What happened to you're head --"

She gestures to his short hair (which is already growing again pretty fast)

"Left the caveman back on the Island, Tokyo Rose --"

"Jack is here then!" She nearly wilts with relief, "Come with me --"

And before he can protest, she grips his hand and pulls him towards her room. His pulse quickens. Hell, this is _Jin's_ wife right? Devoted Betty!

"Oh hey now – _easy_ girl!"

Sun turns in the centre of her room as Sawyer laughs uneasily at Jin, who sits at his desk – that guy could get murderously protective of his lil' lady – then Sun shoves a backpack into his arms. Sawyer just stares at her a moment in bafflement. Sun elaborates,

"Those are the last of his things from the hatch. When we saw the boat, I told Jin to go back to the hatch." She translates for Jin and he says a few back. "He told me I was being ridiculous. That Jack was lost, with you and Kate and that we should get away while we could. But it felt wrong, leaving his things underground, in that hole. So we went back and picked through what was left down there." She clasps her hands triumphantly, smiling that sweet smile, "And I knew he'd be okay. I just knew it."

Damn Jack to hell for making him break this sweet thing's smile. He's never hated the good doctor more than in these moments…

"Sun," He falters, "Jack –"

"If anyone deserved to get off that Island, it was Jack." She continues, "I can't tell you how much better I feel, just knowing he made it, that he escaped…"

Sawyer only gazes at her in horror, unable to tell her…

"Live together, die alone, right?" She prompts, her wide almond eyes staring up…and Sawyer knows what he has to do. The girl will hear the news in good time, but he'll be damned if he's got the heart to break it to her. So swallowing the roadblock in his throat, Sawyer nods.

"I'll be sure he get's 'em." He murmurs, and as he dazedly turns to the door he holds a hand up to Jin, "Later, Chewie."

Part of why he took the backpack is because he finally won. He owned it, he had laid claim to everything that was once Jack's. His last, scattered possessions… but it doesn't give Sawyer the rush of triumph he had been craving. They had meant everything on the Island, ownership was power… but here, they are just a bunch of worthless relics of a dead man, useless and outdated.

Sawyer goes and sits on deck and opens the bag. Inside, is a crumpled t.shirt, razor, and medical kit. A box of needles and thread, lots of sand… and the bottle of meds that had caused Sawyer to steal the guns. He rolls the small plastic bottle in his large hand, entranced at how such a small object had escalated the war between him and Jack…

But Sawyer holds them in his hands now. He has won, so why does it feel like he has lost such a great deal inside? The bottle rolls round and round in his hands, like a reminder of his worthless victory, and he reflects that he always gets what he wants in the end. No matter how many people get hurt or fall by the wayside. The meds are his again.

Looking at that stupid, lousy bottle right now, Sawyer wishes Jack had just left them the hell alone. If he hadn't come and taken them, Sawyer never would have stolen the guns, put them on this path…

Sawyer would let Jack have the meds if he were sitting besides him now.

But Jack is gone, and looking out to sea, Sawyer brings his arm back… and with all his might sends the small bottle hurtling out into the grey misty sea. He doesn't even see it hit the frothing surf, but in his minds eye, he watches the bottle sink below the depths forever, and trying to lay everything to rest, he finally says goodbye to the good doctor.

With Jack's backpack slung over his shoulder, Sawyer goes to the restrooms on deck 6 and puts back the stolen suit and hat. He might never be able to place this piece of crap backpack in Jack's hands, but he could at least give back what he had taken from the sick idiot he'd stolen it from, now that it had served its purpose.

He buys a drink at the deck 6 bar where it's quiet with the last of his change, and wonders what in hell he's going to do for money, if his bank accounts will still be active. After a few drinks, he ends up trading stories with a hard drinker called Earl, the father of the bride who is getting married on board later tonight, and finds out it was _his_ jacket he stole. The poor sap is drinking himself silly because apparently, he's scared his wife is going to castrate him when she finds out.

Drunk, and feeling pretty good about the world since he made his peace with the dead doctor, Sawyer smiles, "Well hell, I know just where it is!"

Standing in the restroom moments later, Sawyer proudly unveils the top hat and jacket on the hook where he had found them the day before. Earl guffaws in deep bellied laughter and shrugs into it excitedly, "Man, I musta been outta my tree. I musta walked right past it a dozen times!"

"Damn funny, that's for sure."

"Say, I can't tell you how much its gotten me off the hook! Hey –" Earl digs around in his pocket and hands Sawyer a silver ticket. "If you could make it, I'd love to have you as a guest of honour. The bride's father's candy-assed city guy – can't hold his liquor. Be good to have a fellow drinker on board!"

"Much as I _love_ weddings, I got plans – "

"That's a real shame," Earl sighs, dejectedly scratching his head, "What with the free bar an' all –"

Those are the magic words, and Sawyer's eyes light up. _"I'm there."_

As night falls, the Oceanic Princess hits turbulence. The chandeliers in the halls tremble and jingle overhead, and paint the halls in flickering yellow light as Kate moves discreetly down the weaving corridor. Her stomach growls in protest at the lurching ocean, and all her senses scream at her to go back to her room, get into bed and ride it out in there… but she knows she has to get some food. She hasn't eaten properly in days, weeks, and she is verging on malnourished. She had briefly considered ordering room service so she wouldn't have to leave, then discounted it when she thought the delivery person may recognize her and report her room number. Then she would be cornered. At least out here, she stood a chance if spotted, of putting some distance between herself and any Feds, then doubling back to her room.

So she had tied her hair back and swathed herself in a deep brown hooded jacket Sawyer had bought her, and braved the halls. It isn't as bad as she expected. Everyone is too concerned with the turbulence, probably doing the smart thing and riding it out in private, in their rooms. It feels good to be out of that room, no matter how much turbulence the ship is going through. The fact that she may bump into Sawyer is no incentive at all, she tries to convince herself, as she studies a wall map on the landing, the brilliant light of it hurting her head…

She decides on hitting a small drugstore on Deck 6 instead of one of the restaurants. No matter how much she would kill for a hot meal, it is too risky here, and one person eating alone on a ship full of families and couples would draw too much attention to herself. So she inconspicuously pads the cramped, neon lit aisles and fills a small basket, trying not to let her ravenous stomach override her senses. Even though Sawyer had done a good job of convincing the Fed's she hadn't made it, she refuses to let her guard down until she is safely bolted in her room again. And Kate is so wrapped up in her head that first of all, she believes the soft gasps in the air are in her mind. But as she looks up, puzzled, she comes to realize that she has just passed a girl in the aisle, who is crying softly.

Kate turns slowly, something about the desperate way this girl is hitching her breath really unsettling her… It is the sound of someone terrified of something…

… Or _someone_. It is a sound Kate knows well…

The girl's shoulders are trembling and Kate looks around, she sees what aisle they are standing in. They are in the pharmacy aisle, and the girl is holding a pregnancy test in her hands.

For a moment, Kate is shocked… then the girl squares her shoulders and fiercely swipes at her eyes as she clears her throat. Before Kate can say anything, the girl stalks determinedly down the aisle towards the checkouts.

In any other situation, Kate would have gone about her business with no thought for the girl whatsoever. But standing here, alone, just hearing those whispery cries affects her in a way she never expects. Because _she_ has cried like that… cowering in shadowy corners, in dreaded fishing boats on lakes, breaking to pieces in strange hatchway's in treetops, dazed in deadly clearings as she stands over a fallen friend… and she knows suddenly, with a surge of hope that maybe she has changed. Maybe Sawyer was _wrong_.

Because now, she won't walk away from this girl.

Paying for her goods with the little pocket change that she could scrabble together, Kate follows the girl cautiously, keeping a good distance and being sure to remain unobtrusive. Finally, she watches the girl head out onto a secluded part of the deck. Outside, with the night steadily falling, the temperature is dropping rapidly, and the wind is stinging. The waves are crashing loudly, slapping against the ship with such force that Kate fears she's going to throw up. This part of the deck is deserted, and she huddles deeper into her jacket, and approaches the girl, who is looking out at the railing.

As she approaches, the girl shoots her an uncertain look and wipes her eyes.

"Jesus, are you okay?" She says, biting back her tears, "You're, like, green!"

Kate forces a smile, gripping the railing as she stares out at the turbulent sea. "Seasickness… Man, I really gotta quit with the sea travel, huh?"

The girl laughs, but it is a thin veneer. Kate can see the pain beneath it, and her instinctive urge is to do something to _help_ her.

"Are _you_ okay?" She calls over the din of the waves, and off the girls look, she elaborates, "I saw you in the drugstore… you looked kind of upset."

The girl looks out to the sea, calling out angrily, "God, I'm such a loser! I guess that's what I get if I start bawling my eyes out in the freakin' medicine aisle --"

"Now you can tell me to mind my own business," Kate says, "I know it's private, I know it's nothing to do with me… but you looked like you could use a friend."

The girl looks blindsided by emotion, absurdly touched at the fact Kate would even notice her, let alone offer any friendship. She looks away, gathering herself… then speaks in a quiet tone. "It's my wedding tonight. The groom's hot, y'know? I totally dig him, but I…"

She meets Kate's eye and holds up the pregnancy kit in it's discreet paper sack. "He's not ready to be a father – Christ, I'm like, eighteen…!"

"This your first test?" Kate's brow knits in concern,

"This is my _third_ test, I'm late --" The girl shakes her head with a glazed, scared look, "I'm _never_ late --"

"It'll be okay," Kate says softly, "But you have to tell him."

The girl looks at her, betrayed a moment, as though this is what she was scared of hearing… but then she nods, looking outwards tiredly, "Its true isn't it? Two can't be wrong."

"I don't think so…" Kate says softly, remembering what Jack had told her what seems a lifetime ago on a distant beach with Sun, "False negative in the first two weeks maybe, but a positives a positive…"

The girl nods, looking outwards like a little rabbit caught in headlights. Her chin trembles, "What if he calls off the wedding? My Mom would be heartbroken –"

"You need to tell him, before it's too late --" She calls over the wind, placing her hand over the girls, "… and if he loves you, he'll understand. He'll do right by you…"

The girl's eyes shine with hope, and glitter at Kate through the growing darkness like falling stars, "You sound like you're talking from experience."

Kate looks away, and suddenly she isn't just talking about the girl's pregnancy anymore. She suddenly understands where the fire in her is coming from, why the words burn from her lips and leave such a sting in her throat. Because she has rejected the one person who had ever understood _her_, tried to do right by her.

"I wish I was…" She says softly, mouth suddenly dry. But she turns outwards, takes a deep breath of frosty wind and says wholeheartedly,

"_I'm talking from hope."_

The girl meets her eyes and this seems to answer whatever remaining doubt she may have been harbouring… after a moment, she looks back out to the churning sea. The Oceanic Princess seems to have made it through the worst of the turbulence, and the waves are easing, now.

"Most of the guests are from Dean – my boyfriend's side." She muses, laughing, "I don't even have any _bridesmaids_. They're seasick! Some wedding, huh?"

"You don't need them..." Kate's eyes linger out on the dark horizon, and she wonders where Sawyer will sleep tonight, if he will be warm, "You don't need anyone else…"

And she turns back to the girl and her voice threatens to fail her as she finishes, "So long as he's there for you when you need him."

The pain must have been apparent, because suddenly she hugs Kate tightly. The unexpected rush of emotion this gives Kate catches her completely off guard.

"I'm Grace," The girl says into Kate's shoulder,

"Maggie --" Kate forces herself to meet Grace's wide smile as she presses a silver ticket into her hand.

'Hey, Maggie listen… I hired two dresses that are sitting in the cloakroom on Deck 7 because my girls are too sick to use them…" She flushes, embarrassed, "So if you want to really help me out…?"

Kate smiles, touched beyond words… and whispers,

'I'll try.'

The girl smiles, and takes a shaky breath then dumps the paper bag in the waste bin.

With forced optimism, she sighs, "Guess I won't be needing this, huh?"

"No…" Kate shakes her head. Grace smiles, and squeezes her hand before turning away leaving Kate to stare down at the silver ticket in her hand… and then her stomach shifts again.

_The turbulence is_ _gone, Katherine! _The voices return, and she hasn't heard them in a long time. _The ocean's smooth as a mirror now, why are you really feeling sick?_

And it takes Kate a moment to realize what she is staring at…

Her hand crunches on the brown paper sack, as she picks up the packet from the trash and studies it closely… and anxiety slowly crawls through her insides.

She returns to her room. Tries not to be disappointed when it is empty, and Sawyer had not returned. She makes up a plate of nachos drizzled in salsa and cheese, and when she sits down to eat it, finds she can barely stomach looking at it. The smell is almost more than she can bear…

She goes out onto her private deck, paces, and then she notices Claire coming out onto hers, cradling Aaron. The Australian girl's eyes sparkle when she sees Kate, although Kate notices the tired rings around her eyes...

"Hey you," Claire smiles that dazzling grin and Kate wonders for the thousandth time how the father of her child could ever have left her, "How you bearing up?"

"I'm good," Kate smiles in return, "Just remembering how much I hate boats."

"I saw the news today," Claire says, her smile fading somewhat, "Kinda weird to think I'm talking to a dead person…!"

"It's kinda weird being the dead person…!" Kate forces laughter, trying to stay upbeat. But her eyes keep falling to Aaron, marvelling at his minute perfection. The thought of such a tiny human life being so totally dependant on someone suddenly brings a rush of dread in her, and she wonders how she would bear up under such pressure… knows instinctively that she couldn't.

"I've got something crazy I need to ask you…" Kate looks to Claire intently… "Could somebody watch over Aaron tonight?"

Claire's nose wrinkles in puzzlement, "Well… yeah, I guess - what you got in mind?"

Kate smiles with an expression of unease and produces the silver ticket. Claire crosses over to the railing which divides their decks and reads the ticket.

"That's amazing… but don't you think it's a little risky? Those cops could still be on the look out."

"It's in a private ballroom," Kate says, gesturing to the ticket, "They won't be around."

"Well, you seem to be pretty dead set…!" Claire says, studying her, and Kate flushes.

"I promised someone I'd try to make it."

Claire tilts her head, maybe knows better not to ask. "But we're like Cinderella's! I don't think I'd pass at a wedding ceremony in my cavegirl clothes…"

Kate returns her eyes, growing excited. "I got it covered."

"Tell me again why I have to stay with a baby while you get all dressed up and go out?" Charlie pouts, sitting sprawled on the bed in Claire's cabin with Aaron asleep on his lap. Claire sighs as she finishes applying her mascara and turns to him with world weary patience.

"Charlie, this is the first time I've done anything for me since Aaron was born. And remember, I'm doing this for Kate too, alright?"

"I think you're doing it so you could wear a pretty dress and drink free alcohol," He sighs, appraising Claire's white bridesmaid's dress, "Me and Hurley were supposed to be hitting the bar tonight!"

"I know, and I really appreciate you staying with Aaron, I do --" Claire bangs on the bathroom door impatiently. "Kate you've been in there nearly half an hour, are you alright --"

And as the door opens, Kate steps out. Charlie does a double take. The white bridesmaid dress is stunning, and she has swept her hair up and off her face.

"You look alright!" Charlie says appreciatively.

Kate shoots him a nervous look of thanks, then turns to Claire. "You ready?"

The tux which Earl loaned Sawyer is a little tight, but seems to cup all the right places just fine, so he can't complain. Standing in the mans digs, which are even fancier than his stolen ones, he finds himself sobering up and wishes he'd brought along more booze. His thoughts return to Kate, wonder if she was sick during all that turbulence, then forces himself to quit that train of thought. It didn't lead anywhere good…

He suddenly feels waves of tiredness wash over him. Maybe he could sleep through the ceremony, and that would give him the strength to wake up for the party and free booze. Sounds like a possible plan.

"Hey," Earl steps out from the bathroom, trying to affix his cufflinks. His fingers are trembling, and Sawyer fixes the cufflinks for him as he speaks, "Man I'm nervous as hell. My daughter's a little young, but she's a sweet thing. Hope this all goes down well…"

"It'll be fine," Sawyer smiles, internally berating himself. Man, the lengths he'd go to for free booze…

The small chapel is light and airy, filled with a forest of flowers that Sawyer looks over in disdain as he slumps in a pew on the groom's side. It's pretty full over here and he wishes he'd met the damn _bride's_ father so at least he could have a little leg room. He looks around bored to death as the last of the people file in… closes his eyes… he hasn't stepped foot in a church since before his parent's died, and swiftly resorts to his plan of sleeping through the entire ceremony --

"Excuse me… is this seat taken?"

Sawyer jumps awake, pissed off – to see a not entirely ugly redhead gesturing to the seat next to him. He shrugs, pulling his legs in so she can sit besides him. After an awkward moment after they have exchanged smiles, she looks around at the church.

"Were you asleep!" She asks smiling widely.

"No – just resting my eyes." Sawyer objects, and the woman seems convinced. Damn, Kate would never have fallen for that. Now the woman looks around and sighs,

"Well, they've done a good job, don't you think?"

"Oh yeah," Sawyer says looking around critically, "Gives a whole new meaning to the word _taste_."

The woman laughs, flipping her mane of shiny hair. "Very Christian of you."

"Good thing I ain't one then, huh?"

"I didn't take you for one."

"I don't trust anything that bleeds for five days and don't die." Sawyer scowls to the front of the aisle, at the statue of Christ leering down at him disapprovingly – when suddenly Earl drops besides him and is pulling him to his feet --

"Best man just threw up in the planter! _You gotta help me—"_

"Whoa now – you got the wrong man!" Sawyer exclaims breaking into a cold sweat as Earl drags him to the head of the aisle –

"_Please,"_ Earl mutters under his breath anxiously, "Please just do this favour for me, my heart's gonna give out under all this stress _please_ --"

And suddenly the music starts. Sawyer grinds to a halt next to a long haired teenager who is drowning in an expensive suit, and guesses he must be the unlucky groom. As his eyes flicker the room for any means of escape, he finds the bride, who is dressed in a damn meringue and closing in on them with a happy great grin on her face --

Then his heart damn near threatens to collapse. Because walking behind her, dressed in flowing white, is a vision from his innermost dreams. For a moment, he just can't wrap his mind around what it is seeing… and then his mind crashes into gear. All his senses go into overdrive as electricity tingles his skin, as adrenaline rockets through his veins, as the smell of a hundred flowers rushes up to overwhelm him…

Because it is _Kate_ who is walking up the aisle behind the bride, towards him with a massive spray of white flowers, Kate dressed in white, unattainable Kate, _beautiful Kate… _

As she pads up the aisle, feeling exposed and vulnerable, the high heels pinching her toes mercilessly, Kate casts a look up – and her mouth forms a shocked O of surprise as her heart nearly stops. _Sawyer is at the head of the aisle, _dressed in a killer Tux, scrubbed within an inch of his life. She sees the same shock hit him, feels a strong surge of heat course through her… and in these moments, she has never been so utterly blindsided by the force of her primal attraction to him. And it leaves her breathless…

Sawyer thinks she looks like a startled deer when her eyes clap hold of him, and she momentarily halts. And to add to the surrealness of it all, Sawyer catches sight of _Claire_ ushering Kate onwards, briefly wonders where she dumped the ankle biter this fine evening. And as Kate continues up the aisle, he feels a deep stirring in his chest, in his stomach, in his loins, _everywhere_, like a colossal magnet is pulling her towards him…

He doesn't take his eyes from her until she is standing besides him. He tears his gaze away throughout the ceremony, numbly gives the ring on its little black cushion to the priest, as the old man in his robes intones,

"Do you, Dean Henstron, take Grace Jenkins to be your lawful wedded wife…"

Sawyer feels eyes burning into his neck, and as he tilts his head, he catches Kate watching him with a deep longing in her bright green eyes.

"To have and to hold… for richer or poorer… in sickness and in health…til death do you part?"

He stares deeply into her, and has the bizarre urge to say _I do. _He suddenly looks around when some clown beats him to it, and remembers exactly what they are _doing_ here when the groom throws his arms around the bride and kisses her deeply.

A chorus of cheers resound through the room, and yet all the while, Kate keeps her eyes fixed on his, on Sawyer's, as her words to Grace echo back in her head,

_You don't need anyone else… so long as he's there for you when you need him._

Suddenly Grace is turning around, and grasps Kate's hands, pulling her away up the aisle, "Thank you Maggie, thank you so much! You look so _hot!"_

Kate smiles weakly, turning to catch a last look at Sawyer – but the crowd engulf him, and Claire is the only one following behind her. The sense of loss that hits her is ridiculous, but undeniable.

For weeks after that night, it is that image that returns to her when she least expects it. Of getting so undeniably close to the brink with Sawyer, then being wrenched back and away in seconds. She reminds herself why she is going alone, that in reality, she could be wrenched away from him anytime if the Fed's cottoned onto the fact she was still alive… and no matter how her heart craves him, she won't put him in the firing line --

"Was that Sawyer in there!" Claire hisses into her ear, and Kate's stomach takes a dive at his name.

"Yeah, I think so."

"You think so?" Claire mimics in disbelief, "Kate you were standing right next to him!"

Kate averts her eyes, feeling her cheeks flame as Claire studies her closely.

"You don't seem surprised to see him," She says softly, "You knew he was here didn't you? Did you arrive with him --?"

"Claire --"

"What are you getting into, Kate – I thought you had more sense!" She says sadly, "He's bad news --"

Suddenly a flurry of white taffeta flounces up and Grace grips Kate's hand, flushed with elation. "You're coming to the after party right?"

"I don't know, sweetie --" Kate protests, but Grace won't hear of it as she turns away,

"There's spare dresses in the cloakroom! Drop my name, help yourselves and _meet_ me there, okay?" She calls over her shoulder excitedly.

After a moment, Claire shrugs and takes her by the hand. "Lets forget about men, just for tonight huh? Come on!" Claire grins widely, coaxing a grin from Kate as Grace and Dean rush to have their photographs taken, "It's all in private, you'll be totally safe. What have we got to lose?"

The bar in the dark, vast ballroom is blessedly tucked up on risers away from the crowded glass dance floor, so at least Sawyer can drown his sorrows with all that hard earned beer in peace. The downside, is that he's been propping up this damn bar steadily for the past two hours, and apart from Earl who came and nearly choked him in a hair mussing bear hug, he ain't spoken to a damn soul. Kate never came. He should have known she wouldn't, that it had been a massive risk to come to the ceremony, whatever her reasons for showing up there had been…

Maybe it was a dream. Maybe, since he is hearing the voices again, Dharma finally have control of him… and are implanting images now, twisting the world around him instead of just his mind… the thought strikes cold dread in him, and he moves onto the hard liquor fast to escape into a welcome, mindless haze…

But the way Kate had looked, the way she made him feel… that had to be _real_ –

"This seat taken?"

He turns blearily to see the redhead gesturing to the bar stool next to him, and he allows a slow grin to light his face.

"Go ahead, Red. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were following me…!"

She laughs, gesturing to the bartender as Sawyer admires the little green dress she is squeezed into. Kinda quirky. She bats her eyelashes and says in her husky voice, "So what's your poison, Tex?"

Sawyer swirls the remaining bourbon in his glass thoughtfully, "Jack Daniels. Still my favourite doctor, y'know? Yup, Jacky D's the weapon of _choice_, Red…" Narrowing his eyes playfully, he tempts, "If you're offering?"

"If you're drinking," She smiles, ordering two, then looks around. She lowers her voice with deliberate intent, "… and if you're alone."

Suddenly Sawyer realizes what he is doing. His eyes are automatically drawn to her necklace, checking out the detailing to see if it's real diamonds, and he's logging the _details_, noticing that for all her finery her nails are chewed ragged and wrinkles are forming around her eyes… he is casing her. _Unconsciously, he has been laying the initial groundwork for a con. _

_Why are you surprised? _The voices return, as he gulps down more liquor, _It's in you James, it's who you are. It's not something you can change._

So he turns to the woman with a sinking feeling, pushing all thoughts of Kate in white, Kate standing besides him at the alter, his angel personified down,

_Angels only existed in the stupid mind of a brainless six year old who believed everything his momma fed him. Momma's dead and gone and Kate ain't no Angel, she ain't gonna SAVE you --_

-- way down, to the very deepest chambers of his battered heart… and focuses on what he knows must be done. If he is going to get off this boat and find his way home, to Tennessee, he needs some seed money…

"I'm alone…" He says, and the hitch in his voice throws him a little. He clears his throat quickly.

An hour later, and Sawyer is satisfied that by the end of this night he could make enough to retire to his own private Island someplace. He's struck the jackpot with this gal, she is the wife of a stupidly rich oil man who she is meeting off the cruise ship. He's already hooked her with his best sales pitch, sold her a sob story that he was on the ship to meet somebody who was supposed to put up money for a _kinda shady deal_, but they blew him out… and this stupid redhead is falling for it, just eating him up with a spoon. It's so easy it should be outlawed. So disgustingly easy. She has already agreed to give him money, is literally falling over herself to…

And as the lights change, and some awful ballad comes on, she leads him onto the dance floor to slow move. Every fibre of his being repels against her touch suddenly, just as his stomach lurches at the thought of how they will be sealing the deal tonight, in her bed. But it's the tried and true play, he tries to convince himself, and he knows if he does this one right, it'll set him up for life…

And as her arms wrap around his neck, he rests his on her hips, forces himself to gaze into her eyes, mutter sweet things into her ear… but he finds his eyes travelling up to the first floor, where the doorway opens in a flicker of light… and for the second damn time in mere hours, Kate nearly gives him a heart attack.

As she moves down the long flight of stairs, his eyes rove over every inch of her in moments. When he saw her at the reception, she looked like the angel of his dreams – but right now, in this darkened writhing ballroom, she looks like the lady in black from all his wildest fantasies. Dressed in an unbelievably figure hugging black dress and heels which he'd happily let her walk all over him in, she has shaken down her hair into a mass of curls, and even from this distance, he can tell she's wearing make-up.

_Lord in Heaven_, he thinks as his hands fall from the redhead's waist, _This is just too much…_

Kate's eyes meet his from up high and she tilts her head, like she is wondering how many more times they can bump into each other in the one night… and before he can stop himself, a sunny grin is blazing across his face. No matter what, she makes him smile.

And the redhead follows his gaze, immediately gets what is happening. He sees sadness in her eyes, feels a momentary pang of regret. "Hey…" She breathes, "You ain't alone are you, beautiful…?"

He kisses her hand, and she virtually melts under the warmth of his touch. She nods, without any real surprise, and smiles indifferently. Sawyer knows she probably expects him to be married, just like her. Sighing, she grabs a slip of paper, jots her number down.

"You ever wanna take me up on my offer to invest, you just look me up now… and we'll finish our little tête-à-tête…" She hands him the slip of paper.

He smiles down at her, folds the slip of paper into his pocket. And as he looks around after her, he suddenly realizes that this room ain't _private_ anymore. Charlie and Hurley are at the bar, terrorizing the barkeep for absinthe probably, Sayid is sitting just plain terrorizing Jin and Sun at one of the tables, and through the nearby crowd, Rose and Bernard waltz slowly. The ole' battleaxe looks like she's chewing the guys ear off about his steps –

"Hey!" Charlie exclaims excitedly, stumbling up with Hurley who has a glow stick in his hand, _"_Can you believe it? We got absinthe_ -- free!"_

"Did you just get that hot chick's phone number…!" Hurley slurs in disbelief.

"No. _Maybe_." Sawyer says, unable to help braggin' just a little. _"Yeah."_

And Hurley throws his arm around Sawyer's shoulders cackling in amazement,

"My God you gotta teach me how to DO that! _Dude!"_

"Claire!" Charlie suddenly pales, and Sawyer sees that Barbie herself is indeed in the house. "Oh my God – I left Aaron with Locke, I gotta run --"

And as Sawyer heaves Hurley's arm from his shoulder, he turns to see Claire and Kate over by the bar. Maybe this is perhaps the most surreal moment somehow of the entire night.

Amazonian Kate, scorner of lacy underwear is standing at the bar, in the highest heels he ever did see. It's like being transported in time back to when he was a kid at his first dance, in his hand-me-down suit, left standing on the sidelines, looking at the pretty girl he knew he could never reach. His eyes meet hers, and she is moving towards him through the crowd. Suddenly his heart is racing, and he is sweating --

Then she is looking up at him, the music too loud to allow any words. The apology in her eyes is enough. Crazy as it sounds, looking back, Sawyer thinks any words would have only diminished from those perfect moment where she stands looking up to him with her smouldering bedroom eyes, which he guesses are _her_ weapon of choice for tonight. And man, don't they pack a punch…

Her arms wrap around his neck, and he slides his around her waist, locking them comfortably around her like she was built to fit him, and only him. As she nestles her head in the crook of his neck, he smells soap, she smells good…

His face moves as though out of his control. His lips brush her forehead, cheek… and as she pulls back, brush her lips…

When suddenly her eyes widen. He feels her go rigid in his arms, and feels her gasp against his chest. As his eyes ricochet open, he sees her staring past him into the crowd, looking up onto the balcony…

… where the two Federal Agents Sawyer immediately recognizes as Callahan and Malone are busy casing the crowd.

"Just take it easy…" He whispers down to her, but he knows it is futile – she has that defensive, cornered look in her eyes, it has extinguished all the fire and lust he had seen growing there. She pulls back from him, and before he can stop her, she has vanished into the crowd. He ploughs after her, catching momentary flashes of a bare shoulder in the pounding strobe lights, a swish of black mane –

He barrels through the crowd and coasts to a stop in a long, winding hall which leads off from the ballroom. Head thumping, heart racing he tears looks around as the bass from the ballroom throbs in the air, trying to gauge how in hell Kate vanished into thin air…

Lost in thought it takes him a moment to register feeling a hand encircle his wrist – and yank him hard. Before he knows where he is, he is tumbling backwards into darkness, and his back cracks against some kind of shelf. He stifles a bellow of surprised pain, because suddenly he finds himself nose to nose with Houdini herself, in a dark, insanely cramped space.

"_Hi."_ She breathes heavily, with a nonplussed smile.

He looks down at her in shock, sarcasm dripping from him, _"Hi!"_

She peers over his shoulder through the slats of the door. "Are we clear?"

"Are we in a _broom_ _closet?" _He hisses, and she nods up at him as if this were the most rational place in the world to hang out.

"We can't afford to take any chances."

"What are you even doing out of the room?" His breath quickens at what could have just happened in there, "What did I tell you, what with the Fed's --"

"_Sawyer, just shut up…"_ She hisses, and it's unbearable being this close to each other. Whatever she wants to say, she's having trouble. And his stupid heart skips a beat. Finally she looks to him with heartbreaking slowness, amber eyes falling on him… he feels her body tremble against him in the darkness as she finally breathes,

"_I'll take what I can get." _

For a moment, these words make no sense whatsoever. And then a vague recollection begins to form in his mind… and that damn foolish hope rises its head, tightens in his chest as he says in an incredulous voice,

"Come again?"

"Last night…" She knows he needs more, he can tell. "You said you didn't have anything to give me… well maybe I don't want anything. _I'll take what I can get."_

"You don't know what you're getting yourself into." He breathes, realizing his hands are already moving up her legs, sides… and maybe he is talking to himself as much as her, trying to dissuade himself…

"I know…" She breathes, and suddenly her mouth is on his, hot and long-awaited, and his insides clench in pleasure. So throwing in the towel for the second time in a week, Sawyer hikes Kate up onto the shelf of towels and revels in forgetting their issues, as his body and mouth meets hers…

Then his brow creases, as his hand brushes suspiciously scratchy fabric, and he looks down… and a sunny grin spreads across his face as she looks to him in confusion.

"Whores underwear, huh?" Sawyer skims his fingers over the red lace,

"And your point is?" She rolls her eyes and gives him such a wide beam he thinks his heart will damn near burst under the warm of it.

"Baby, you can take me for all I got any day of the week." He finally covers her mouth with his own as her hands travel down the length of his body, and smiling into her kisses, he sets the pace.

**PLEASE REVIEW ME! **

_You are soooo beautiful, to me! Can't you see? I neeeeeeeeeeed your love! God's speeeeeeeeeed your love to meeeeeeeeeee!_

_Thought I'd do a little mega-mix of awful wedding ballads to tie in with this chapter, and my regular appeal for reviews. Come on: D_


	26. Theft by seduction

**MAJOR DISCLAIMER**

**OKAY...!**

**I am still in two minds about putting this up, because it was a challenge someone from Lost Forum set me... **

**So, the next mini chapter is not technically a new chapter, but it is a XXX version of the closet scene. It is PRETTY RAUNCHY, so if you are of a shy disposition, please don't read it, wait for the next chapter. You won't lose out on any of the story.**

But for all those who asked me to write this... well...

... be careful what you wish for. Because you GOT IT!

**Chapter 26**

**Theft by seduction **

He barrels through the crowd and coasts to a stop in a long, winding hall which leads off from the ballroom. Head thumping, heart racing he tears looks around as the bass from the ballroom throbs in the air, trying to gauge how in hell Kate vanished into thin air…

Lost in thought it takes him a moment to register feeling a hand encircle his wrist – and yank him hard. Before he knows where he is, he is tumbling backwards into darkness, and his back cracks against some kind of shelf. He stifles a bellow of surprised pain, because suddenly he finds himself nose to nose with Houdini herself, in a dark, insanely cramped space.

_"Hi."_ She breathes heavily, with a nonplussed smile.

He looks down at her in shock, sarcasm dripping from him, _"Hi!"_

She peers over his shoulder through the slats of the door. "Are we clear?"

"Are we in a _broom_ _closet?" _He hisses, and she nods up at him as if this were the most rational place in the world to hang out.

"We can't afford to take any chances."

"What are you even doing out of the room?" His breath quickens at what could have just happened in there, "What did I tell you, what with the Fed's --"

_"Sawyer, just shut up…"_ She hisses, and it's unbearable being this close to each other. Whatever she wants to say, she's having trouble. And his stupid heart skips a beat. Finally she looks to him with heartbreaking slowness, amber eyes falling on him… he feels her body tremble against him in the darkness as she finally breathes,

_"I'll take what I can get." _

For a moment, these words make no sense whatsoever. And then a vague recollection begins to form in his mind… and that damn foolish hope rises its head, tightens in his chest as he says in an incredulous voice,

"Come again?"

"Last night…" She knows he needs more, he can tell. "You said you didn't have anything to give me… well maybe I don't want anything. _I'll take what I can get."_

"You don't know what you're getting yourself into." He breathes, realizing his hands are already moving up her legs, sides… and maybe he is talking to himself as much as her, trying to dissuade himself…

"I know…" She breathes, and suddenly her mouth is on his, hot and long-awaited, and his insides clench in pleasure. So throwing in the towel for the second time in a week, Sawyer hikes Kate up onto the shelf of towels and revels in forgetting their issues, as his body and mouth meets hers…

Then his brow creases, as his hand brushes suspiciously scratchy fabric, and he looks down… and a sunny grin spreads across his face as she looks to him in confusion.

"Whores underwear, huh?" Sawyer skims his fingers over the red lace,

"And your point is?" She rolls her eyes and gives him such a wide beam he thinks his heart will damn near burst under the warm of it.

"Baby, you can take me for all I got any day of the week." He finally covers her mouth with his own. The sheer burst of heat which burns through him upon this connection makes his heart pound and his insides quiver with deep, urgent spasms… because although he knows he'll never have her secrets, never be able to keep her, right now, it doesn't matter – right now, she is his… they have this.

Right here, in this moment, it is enough, she is everything, all that matters.

_I'll take what I can get_

The incredible heat she's giving off does something to him. His senses blur as he presses against her urgently, throbbing with desire. Her hands rake down his back as he shucks out of his tux jacket and she laughs up at him, all sparkling eyes and crinkly nose. Dragging him close with the material of his bow tie, she smashes a kiss to his lips, sucks at his mouth so hungrily that he reels, light-headed from lack of oxygen. Hell he could think of worse ways to die than suffocated by one of Freckles all consumin' kisses – reaching around the back of her head, he gathers her tousled dark mane above her head…

Between her ravaging kisses, the sensation of his insistent, expert hands kneading her sides, gripping her hips stirs her up into a boiling ocean of need. It has been too long since she has felt this kind of primal desire, such carnal craving. Before, their coupling had been like two world war survivors gathering together for comfort, unsure if they would see morning, or if they deserved to. But this time, it is different.

Now, electricity shoots through her veins and lust burns in her chest like cheap vodka. Her eyes sting and her throat is locked with yearning, stomach all twisted and aching as he nuzzles into the hollow of her neck, all bristle and muscled determination.

As he administers bites to her neck, revelling in the pure untainted white of her skin, she wraps her legs around his waist. She pulls off his shirt and throws it over his head with carefree abandon, and it blows his mind, he's never seen her like this, so utterly inhibited and wild. He's always relished the power rush of seeing a woman lost of all her senses, under his spell completely… and this time, he aims to prove to her why he was such a successful conman, and exactly why he never lost a conquest in the bedroom (a broom closet will be no exception, he vows). Theft by seduction is his forte, after all – and after this night, he aims to make sure he has stolen her heart so she will never leave him again.

Meeting her lips again, he twists her hair back, and unfastens the tie of her dress as her feels her hands working away at his zipper. The air is heavy and thick with heat, their heat, and it's so hard to breathe, the anticipation burns in his chest, as she finally shucks his pants down and he's home free.

Clenching her legs about his taunt abs, she moves to hop up onto him – but he pulls back. Her eyes glitter up at him a moment, their breath whistling hard and fast on each other, before he smiles, and lowers himself down. If she thought this was gonna be a wham bam thank you ma'am moment, she had another thing coming.

As she watches him go down, her hands rake his hair as it tickles her breasts, stomach as he lavishes searing kisses and soft nips up and down her body. And her body seems to be straying dangerously out of the realm of her control – her hips writhe, buck in anticipation, her breath tearing in and out of her in jagged hisses as she wills him to rise back up, quench this maniacal need he has evoked. She heaves at his arms, but he only pins her in place tighter, holding her hands at her sides, forcing her to play by his rules. To loose her inhibitions…

Finally, when he feels he is about to burst, he allows her to guide him up to meet her, where she immediately kisses him back, gripping her hands through his hair and dragging them up his back so hard it burns. His big hands engulf her cheeks, hold her face close as he rolls his tongue against hers, reaching in deeper then pulling back teasingly, and Christ _she tastes sweet like creamy white Russians --_

As Kate leans forth, she finds she is so tiny that Sawyer's hips act as great leverage, and with a deliberate slowness that makes her want to scream, he makes his move. As he nestles right up close, so close she can feel his frantic heartbeat through his chest, he burrows his head down into her slick shoulder, and works his way deep inside her. As she moves with him, trying to pick up the pace, he holds her in place with sheer physical strength and forces her to take it slow. _Excruciatingly_ _slow_, and through the heat haze of her desire, she knows this is some kind of conquest for him, that he is trying to prove something to her. And for once, she knows that there is no way she can possibly compete with him in this arena – he has used sex as a weapon for so long that he has mastered all control, fine tuned every thrust and slow rolling grind to rapturous perfection…

_Is this what it feels like to be seduced? _Her mind buzzes in wonder, as he works away, his shoulders rolling and sheened in a fine gleam of sweat. Sweat, heat, breath, pain.  
And as she bites at his earlobe, wrenching him close, she can feel his breath quickening on her shoulder, his pulse racing faster, faster –

And as she pulls back, she sees his eyes are glazed with primal need, knows they are finally reaching the release that he has been denying her all along – _and their eyes lock hard and fast on each other in acceptance -- _

And as the incredible fire burns outwards first from her groin in waves, then bursting through her chest like relentless electric shocks, she trembles against his strong form with a strangled gasp, which triggers his own rush of fire straight over the edge of control. She watches his face through the cloud of popping lights that blur her vision, exploding behind her eyes, to see the equal loss of control in Sawyer. Finally, in the dark confines of this space, they are equal. He may have been able to keep her at bay throughout, exercising superhuman control and ease, but in the end, the fact that she has brought him to the same place he had done with her brings a flush of triumph to her already crimson cheeks.

And as he looks down at her, breathing heavily, bodies still wrapped in one another, he does not speak. There is nothing either of them could have said – they are long past needing words, she realizes. But looking up into his face, she knows that this binds them ever closer, that however frivolous this may seem, after all they have been through, the fact that it is with _Sawyer_ makes it seem infused with a greater meaning, somehow.

His lips only curl upwards in a soft, slow smile which Kate would have called _dreamy_ if it wasn't Sawyer sporting it. He flicks a soft, lingering kiss on her nose, and as he pulls back and looks her deep in the eyes, she thinks he looks vulnerable suddenly, like he could bang her up against towels and sheets til the cows came home, but this… this is a display of real _affection_.

And it is _honest_, something neither of them ever have the courage to be, often.

She meets his gaze, and feels the cool laughter bubbling up from deep within like a beautiful tide. And as she first bites it back, then smiles a big, sunny grin, he watches a moment… then when he understands she is not laughing at him, that lazy grin spreads like butter, and his dimples line his face as he joins her in laughter.

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	27. Jimmy and Katie

**Chapter 27**

**Jimmy and Katie**

A sprawl of limbs.

Calves and thighs, torsos and stomachs and elbows, acres of darkest locks splayed across dirty blonde. And warmth… the beautiful warmth still lingers long after the moment has long passed, left in the night and the dark confines of a certain blessed broom closet.

Sawyer filters through these things in his half-way state between dreams and consciousness, marvels at how long it has been since he has woken in the arms of a woman he gave a damn about, of how his firsts thoughts are not of how he is going to escape, but instead, a fragile contentment.

He takes private pleasure in watching Kate in a defenceless state, at her most uninhibited where the strains of her daily life cannot touch her. As he rises into full consciousness, still feeling half drunk, he lies next to her awhile, and instead of touching on the danger that their relationship (or whatever it is they have) holds in store for them, he contents himself with counting the freckles on the bridge of her nose, makes it thirty two before losing count. He is just about to start over, when she stirs.

He watches years of hostility and suspicion pour back into her delicate features with a distant feeling of doomed protectiveness – because he is rapidly reaching that awful place where he would do anything, _anything_ to prevent ever seeing that look of hunted dread he knows too well surface in her face… and it _gets_ to him. Suddenly it stifles him, overwhelming him in early those dawning hours, unbidden and unwanted.

As he watches her wake, his chest constricts, and he realises with horrified dread that his disjointed thoughts last night about having a _'wham bam thank you ma'am'_ quickie with Freckles was out of the question. He'd been a fool to ever think that could be the case…

Because this woman is like a drug he knows he won't ever be able to get enough of. He could deflower her in a thousand broom closets, in countless mysterious tree-top hatchways and in ocean liner cabins until the end of time and still feel desperately unfulfilled, in need of another fix of her. It only really sinks in right here, lying in the dusky blue light, in the early hours, just how _addictive_ she is…

_Yeah_, he muses in his semi-drunken mist as she flutters her eyelids and yawns, _She's the ultimate high, the drug to beat all drugs…Or maybe a poison._ Maybe that's more accurate. Working her way into his most staunchly guarded, painful places with ease, burrowing deep beneath his skin and spreading like wildfire through every inch of him, smouldering like an endless fever. Breaching him mercilessly against his will, against everything he believed…

Her bright emerald gaze meets his still fogged with sleep, and they momentarily cloud with apprehension as to how their new sleeping arrangements will go down with her new bedfellow. He doesn't speak. It's too damn early for chit-chat, and he couldn't wrap his tongue around anything else but hers right now.

Instead he just reaches down and brushes a soft kiss across the tip of her up-turned nose, then moves to pull on his pants. He has come to expect nothing back from her,

_It wasn't meant to be you_

So he refuses to draw this out any longer. But to his surprise, he feels a hand encircle his wrist, and caught off guard, he drops back next to her –

… and she plants a chaste kiss on his lips. Simple, yet infused with the fire he has come to know from her. Before it can build into anything more, she pulls back and gives him a hesitant smile.

"Good morning."

"Night." He grins back, echoing her words to him from the last time they'd woken in this predicament, "It's still dark out."

Kate looks around, stretching and scoffing as she reaches for the bedside clock. "It's four am. It'll be light soon."

Lordy, he has to admire the lengths she'll go to have the last word. She should know him better by now than to think he'll let her have it. "Well done, genius! But it don't change the fact it's still dark as damn thunder out there, does it?"

She flashes him a deliberately smartass grin, and he wonders if she learnt that trick off him. He flushes a little with pride that his mannerisms are rubbing off on her already, enough to make him quit ribbing her. But hell, she _is_ fun to rib.

"You think it's gonna storm?" Kate pulls her towelling robe about her and crosses to the deck doorway with almost naive wonder. He is intrigued that in the same breath as being so maddeningly competitive she could reveal herself to be so childlike. As he flips the coffee percolator on, he eases beside her and follows her rapt gaze out to the weighty purple grey skies misted outside their door. The clouds are loaded and heavy with rain just waiting on falling, and a far-away drone warns of distant thunder closing in…

"Looks like it." He studies her critically, "Why you got such a damn goofy grin? You forgettin' your fondness for being sick in the slightest waves?"

She glances to him with a look of awe. "I love storms. Always have, ever since I was a kid. The really big ones are the best, with sheet lightning all across the sky and thunder that gets you, really _gets_ you in here --" She rests his hand on her chest, "It's cleansing… and it's so big… kinda makes you feel small… and everything you've done feels even smaller…" Her smile fades and her eyes mist with distant bliss…"Until you're just standing out there… in the blanket rain, soaked through but too gone to give a damn… and the thunder's in _here_… and you feel good again. _Clean_…"

After a moment she meets his eyes, and suddenly realizes she is still drunk. They hadn't been asleep for more than an hour at most… And now she wonders if she's gone too far, if he will laugh at her, scoff or roll his eyes. Crack a deadpan comeback, make her feel as small as little Katie standing out soaking in the storm…

Sawyer sees that defensive look rising, and probably due to the fact that he'd downed enough Jacky D hours ago to fell an elephant, he can't quell the sudden pissed off, protective rush he gets now. Maybe in bed, when the world wasn't spinning and he didn't feel light headed he had found the strength – but with Freckles staring up at him and threatening to recede behind her barricades again, some internal switch in him snaps. _Get her what she wants --_

Sawyer is staring outwards with a distance in him that Kate hasn't seen in awhile… then to her surprise, he pulls open the door and steps out onto the cold deck. The wind whips his robe about him and he looks like a wild magician standing out there, braving the growing storm and roaring ocean as he turns to her –

"Hell, you want rain sweetheart? I'll give you the best storm you ever saw."

And before she can stop him, he turns outwards and splays his hands wide, turning outwards to the stormy sky as electricity seems to course through him –

"Come on you son-of-a-bitch! _Rain down on me now!_ Yeah you heard me! Break out, come on now, soak me to the bone, drench me stupid, _just do it --!"_

Even through her haze of sleep and alcohol her instincts tell her to quieten him, but somehow, he enraptures her. Something about the way the air tingles with stormy electricity and the wind is blasting about them renders this dawning morning magical somehow. She can feel fresh kisses of rain on her cheeks, carried down from above as the great grin spreads across her cold cheeks, and she whispers,

"_Sawyer…!"_

Suddenly the heavens open. It is as though they are back on the Island and a faucet has been thrown on. The force of the blanket rain is brutal, immediately soaking through her robe and freezing her skin… but the alcohol braces her against the shock.

Instead of backing away, she is held in place by the magnetic sight of Sawyer slowly turning to her against the lightning streaked sky, soaked through in a tee shirt which clings and hugs every groove of the body she had cherished mere hours ago… and breaking into an almighty grin, he extends his arms to her, and bows low as the rain pours in rivers from his head.

"Madam ordered rain?"

She approaches on the slippery wet deck, entranced by him and takes his hands. Her gaze travels outwards as the bursts of lightning flicker through the clouds and thunder reverberates spectacularly in her chest. He draws her close through the torrential rain, and as she looks up at him in wonder, a sodden vision of all that is right and wrong in her life. She knows the storm was on the horizon, knows what he was trying to do…

_So long as he's there for you when you need him_

And suddenly she flames with a profound thankfulness for that he is here. Gratitude for everything bad and good in him, for every cocky retort and argument and all the pain, because it has brought them _here_, to realize what she had been so scared of admitting… the deepest relief that he has made it, and through everything, has stuck with her.

"How'd you do that, huh?" She looks upwards through the rain, out at the lightning, and he smiles, drawing her close. She can feel his arms lock about her as though they will never let go, and she suddenly feels safe. For the first time in a long time, she feels that maybe she will not have to shoulder the burden of her life and crimes alone, and as she meets his gaze through rivers of rain which pour down her face, she is no longer talking about summoning rain clouds as she breathes, _"How'd you do that…?"_

"Me'n God ain't on speaking terms Freckles," He drawls, and she can feel he is trying not to shiver, "So I guess when I finally step up to bat and tell the guy to _do_ something, he don't hold back."

Sawyer gestures upwards at the almighty rain as if in affirmation, and suddenly laughter is tearing through Kate. Deep and cleansing, the laughter leaves her breathless and senseless with its power, and this is better than just getting lost in a storm, because she isn't lost alone anymore. There would never be anyone else like the man holding her and laughing with her, no one else who could cause her so much heartache yet stir her deepest soul. Only Sawyer could think he could intimidate God, after all.

After they get a change of clothes and dry up, they creep down to the 24hr buffet on the 3rd deck, grab breakfast when it opens at five, and eat dry continental breakfasts sitting in a secluded plastic booth looking out over the storm. Both are hung-over, both subdued at the possible risk that being out in the open could bring. As Sawyer gulps down steaming, bitter coffee Kate pushes food about her plate half-heartedly. Sitting with her shoulders hunched and his oversized hooded jacket dwarfing her and obscuring her face, she looks white and pinched. But she is looking outwards at the thunder and lightning with dogged appreciation. After a moment he gestures to her plastic tray.

"You gonna eat them there eggs or make putty outta 'em?"

She seems to come back to herself a little, takes a sip of coffee before shaking her head. She sounds like she is forcing herself to speak evenly. "I don't like eggs. You want 'em?"

She lifts her tray and he scrapes them onto his. They don't look too appetizing after she has pulverized them, but hell, all comes out the same way right?

As Kate watches him wolf down the last of his breakfast, she feels the seasickness twisting her stomach in knots. And it isn't the devilish lust that she experienced mere hours ago either, it's deeper, more painful...

A shadowy notion has been lurking in the back of her mind over the past couple of days, one which she has been too scared to examine. But sitting here in the rolling diner, as the lamps flicker and buzz overhead, her head begins to whirl. She feels a steady pulse emanating from where the implant once was, throbbing, and she quickly drinks more coffee in an effort to suppress it…

As Sawyer eats the crappy meal, he mentally berates the bread for being stale, the butter for being too hard, the beans for being too sloppy. And just when he's about to voice his frustrations, he looks up to see Kate is staring over his shoulder. He turns to look through the sparse diner and catches a re-run of the Oceanic News flickering on the flat screen monitor near the door. Callahan is talking, and when Sawyer returns her look, he says softly,

"Forget about it. They'll be asleep if they got any sense, and they think you're _dead_. So in my book, that makes you safe as houses."

Kate nods, but he gets the sense she is only agreeing because she knows that's what he wants to hear. There's something else here…

"You're worried about your Mom…?"

Kate looks up in surprise, jolted from her anxious thoughts. Her mother is never far from her mind, and yet the fact he has remembered her initial fears the first time she had seen the news surprises her.

"I don't even know if she's still alive." She says in a soft voice, "Last time I saw her she was in hospital. Just before she gave me up to the cops."

Sawyer watches her sadly. "Well we'll find out. When we hit land, we'll go find her on the way to wherever Garrett's wife is."

But Kate is distant, and he knows nothing he is saying is really sinking in. Maybe it's the hang-over, the early hour, or her seasickness. He's got no idea.

"The news reader called me Katherine… my _Mom_ called me Katherine…" She says softly, "I just hadn't heard it in awhile…"

Her eyes warm with brief nostalgia, "When I did something good, she'd call me Katie." He smiles, humouring her, as she meets his gaze.

"What were you called when you were younger?"

Sawyer looks away, smile fading. The familiar feel of a leaden weight sinking down his chest rises to greet him and he pulls his hat down a little further, draws patterns in the bean sauce as his heart races. Suddenly, he's not sure he can tell he even if he wants to. It seems like such a wholly clandestine thing, something he has never willingly told _anyone_…

But then he looks up, catches her gaze and instinctively knows that however hard it is for him, she needs to hear this. Right now, she looks set to be sick. She is flagging. She needs him to anchor her with something, _anything_…

And so staring at his hands, he grits his teeth and the single word whistles through his dry lips…

"_James."_

After he doesn't hear anything for a minute or two, he slowly brings his gaze up, wondering at her reaction, what she can possibly say. Such a safe, normal name given to a man who is as reckless and volatile as he is seems almost a hopeless fallacy.

But he finds her eyes are unfocused, glazed over with nostalgia as she gazes outwards at the storm. And as she feels his eyes light on her, he watches the corners of her mouth curl up into a soft, wistful smile…

"James, huh? James…" She seems to be testing out the feel of it on her tongue, listening to how it resonates in the air, before coming to the conclusion…

"That's a nice name. I like it."

Something about the way she states such simple words pierces him. In the terrible days and years to come, when times are at their hardest and things seem hopeless, he will always remember that wistful smile of hers, as they sat in that crappy diner in the rolling storm, and the way she accepted who he was without question, without hesitation.

As he eases back in his seat, toying with his fork, he only realizes he is talking, not just thinking when he hears his words on the air. "One of my stepfathers – this wino hard case I stayed with when I was fifteen, well, he used to get all leathered to hell and run round the woods with his shotgun, taking pot-shots at chipmunks. Used to fall over and yell for me to come fetch him in from the snow. Called me Jimmy…" His lip curls at the memory, "To this day, don't think the bastard ever knew that weren't my damn name at all…"

He meets her gaze, and that small, wistful smile still curls her lips as she nods, taking this in… then after a moment, she sighs.

"Jimmy and Katie. Best left in the past, huh?"

"Yeah…" He breathes, wishing it wasn't so, that he could tell her different. But there is no going back. They don't go by those names anymore because they are the names of people left long in the past. They'd long given up any right to use them now. Sawyer finishes with a sad twinkle in his eye, "Yeah, I guess so."

She nods, as though expecting his agreement but looking almost afraid of it, also. He reaches out and grips her hand gently, suddenly needing to make this right somehow, but not knowing how to start.

"Wherever we go, we'll get new names." Off her quizzical look, he elaborates, "Better names! Whatever you want."

And her eyes crinkle and her smile widens as reward for his ham-fisted efforts.

"Oh, I'll bet you got some suggestions."

"Why I do." He grins, leaning forth, "Always thought you looked like a Sexy Suzi, maybe Delectable Daisy? Long legs Lori, Air-bags Annie, –"

"I'm sorry I asked!"

"Well hell, it ain't a good name if I can't make fun outta it!"

She smiles and looks to her hands, shaking her head. After a moment, she drains the last of her coffee and sighs, "I saw some of the others in the bar last night…"

"Any of them see you?"

"I don't think so." She sighs regretfully, "I kept my head down, away from them. I hated it. I wanted to go hug Sun, check up on Sayid, catch up with Hurley…"

"It ain't that easy no more," Sawyer sighs, "I guess we gotta pick our battles from here on in Freckles. Now I ain't saying those people ain't your friends… but there's a mighty hefty reward on your lil head, and take it from me, the promise of green does strange things to some people."

Kate nods disappointedly, and meets his gaze. "What about Charlie and Claire?"

"You already said you trusted her," Sawyer says as he picks up his things.

"I do… but you said it. What if they need the money?"

Sawyer meets her gaze, and no matter how ambivalent he is about Claire's intentions, he knows Charlie is a cocky little terrier who would follow whatever his Mamasita wanted to do. And Claire _seems_ on the level…

"I _also_ said we gotta pick our battles. Which _means_, not worrying about nothin' we can't change, or wasting our time fretting about what other people are thinkin'."

"Chances are we'll be docking soon," Kate muses off his train of thought as they stand to leave, "Then we never have to see any of them again anyway…"

He doesn't fail to note the distinct sadness in her voice although she tries to hide it.

"Can't come around soon enough." He mutters grouchily as they cautiously start towards their cabin again.

The twang of cinnamon bagels and hot tea drifts through the air, awakening Sawyer with its delicious and unmistakable twang to find Kate merrily bustling about the counter knocking up breakfast, illuminated by golden light from the bathroom. As he stirs she turns to him and averts her eyes with a damn near guilty smile.

"Didn't mean to wake you. It was meant to be a surprise…!"

He hikes himself up on his elbows and squints at the clock. It's four pm, and they sleep long and hard. He casts a look to the bleak doorway and deck to see the storm is still raging outside, casting its diffused grey light over everything. It is oppressive and the air is heavy with the weight of the rain, accented by the continual dry roar of the ship's engines.

"A surprise…?" He cocks an eyebrow in amusement, "Didn't have you down for the breakfast in bed type of gal."

"You want breakfast in bed, you can sleep in the kitchen." She grins with a sardonic roll of her eyes, biting into a bagel, "This is _mine_."

"_That's_ my surprise?" He says incredulously, "That you're helping yourself to my food?"

"No," She says with infuriating slowness as she crosses to the bed, "Your surprise is…" She kneels on the bed and kisses him deeply, the taste of butter and cinnamon tingling his lips. And as she pulls back he notices she is still pale, and now she has dark circles beneath her eyes. But before he can voice any concern, she breathes down excitedly, "We're docking tomorrow! They put it on the news. I wanted to wake you but --"

"Damn good thing you didn't." He mutters grumpily. This isn't the kind of surprise he had in mind. He reaches around to draw her to him for a deeper kiss, but she scuttles back out of his reach to flip the coffee percolator off, continuing determinedly,

"So we need to put together a plan. We need to figure out exactly where we're going, how we're gonna get there, and how we're going to _afford_ it. We need to track down Garrett's wife, and figure out a way to get to her and make her help us." She throws the last of her bagel away and shrugs into his hooded jacket again, "I'm gonna go buy some maps, get started on planning the best routes. We'll have to stay off the interstates, use mainly old back routes, so it'll take longer, but at least it's safer --"

Sawyer watches the whirlwind of activity that is hurricane Kate with a detached kind of awe. He suddenly realizes that for all the strained normality of the past days on board the ship, he had lost sight of the life that awaited them on dry land. A life in hiding, on the run… and suddenly he wishes they could stay in the safe haven of this ship forever, occasionally darting out to get supplies or get down in broom closets for kicks. At least here, they know what they are up against. Here, there are only two Fed's who are no longer conducting an active search… whereas on land, there are cops everywhere, on the lookout…

He stands and dresses, mulling over these approaching dilemmas, and grabbing his suit, he sighs. Turning to Kate, he shrugs. "Gonna return this to the big enchilada who leant it out. Be careful going to the store, huh?"

She looks up at him and nods distractedly, then starts when she feels something cold press into her hands. She looks down to see Sawyer pushing the Beretta at her. As her gaze meets his, he nods grimly.

"Just in case."

As he turns to the doorway, she calls, "If anyone asks --"

He turns and grins, "You're waiting in my hot tub with a six pack and filthy thoughts?"

She glares at him, forcing her lips not to curl into a smile, but the twinkle in her eyes gives her away. "You didn't _see_ me." She emphasizes.

As soon as Sawyer has closed the door behind him, Kate goes to the bed and rifles through her bag for the last of her pitiful reserves of money. Looking out at the lessening storm, her stomach suddenly lurches with such force she gasps. Stumbling out onto deck, she grips the railings and is sick overboard. The world spins crazily, her head burns and her stomach cramps painfully –

And when she turns she sees Claire is standing there staring at her with honest concern. Kate forces herself to stand and meet her gaze, gives a shaky laugh.

"Hey… didn't expect you to be out."

But Claire is not convinced by any attempts at small talk. The blonde bustles across her deck and leans across the barrier between their decks. She rests her hand on Kate's forehead, her own brow furrowed…

"What… what are you doing?" Kate says in surprise.

But it seems Claire has come to some kind of realization… because as she removes her hand, she says "You're never sick at night, are you?"

"What..!" The world is spinning and this feels strangely dreamlike, unreal.

"It's not seasickness, Kate." Claire says with deep concern etched into her porcelain face, and as the wind whips around her she has to raise her voice to be heard, "And I think you already know that."

Kate can only stare at her, uncomprehending, as Claire shakes her head in frustration.

"You know what you have to do. You have to be sure."

"It's seasickness," Kate defends stubbornly, unable to grasp it being anything else, "I know what seasickness feels like okay, I've had it before, I know what this is and it's _not_ what you think --"

"So make sure." Claire's eyes blaze, "There's no harm in making sure, is there?"

"I don't _need_ to make sure!" Kate says in outrage, "I know, don't you think I would know if it was anything else alright, I would _feel_ it, I would _know!"_

Claire only nods her head, and before she leaves Kate alone on the deck, she says simply, _"I think you know."_

Refusing to be drawn into any of the crazed notions Claire had intentionally planted in her head, Kate focuses in on the plan, the plan that will get her through this and end this present nightmare. So forcing herself to keep up her guard, she travels to the Books Etc bookstore concession on deck 4 where she peruses numerous maps and blows the last of her money on a couple of high quality road atlases.

This was a bad idea… something is feeling very wrong inside her. And now it is her _head_ which is ringing, and a deep pulsating pain is driving right through her head to the base of her skull. As she arms sweat from her brow with a shaky motion, doggedly clenching her books tightly to her chest, the air suddenly seems electric with tension. The hairs on the back of her neck and all along her suddenly cold arms rise, and in the distant chasms of her mind she hears indistinguishable whispers rising… _rising_…

And as she weaves her way through the tall aisles of books to leave, she turns to see a very familiar form standing slouching near the doorway, checking over some kind of law manual. Time seems to slow to a grinding, awful halt. Because even before the figure turns, before she looks up with cocky arrogance and self assurance abound, Kate knows who it is, feels the realization root her to the spot and sink through her in all it's mind shattering, logic defying reality.

_It is Ana-Lucia._

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_**Next chapter will be up tomorrow – I'm on a ROLL!**_


	28. Ghosts of the past

**Chapter 28**

**Ghosts of the past**

Reality suddenly seems hopelessly far away, and Kate wonders with dawning horror if the culminating stress of the past days, weeks has finally snapped her mind clean in two. She can't formulate words, her mind has gone into _lockdown_ --

"You… _you…"_

Ana-Lucia is staring at her critically, aware of Kate's shock and looking uncertain as to the reason. "Hey."

_Christ, she's talking!_ Kate feels her knees lock in fear, the blood race through her in dizzying waves as that clipped accent hangs in the stuffy air.

"How's it goin'?"

"What the…" Kate desperately forces the words out, meaning to sound assured and calm, but all that escapes from her is a strangled hiss. _"What are you doing here…!"_

And now Ana-Lucia knits her brow, dark obsidian eyes flashing. "What are you _talkin'_ about?" She enunciates her words carefully, driving her point home, "We got _rescued_. You didn't think I was gonna stay _behind_, did you?"

Kate looks to her at a complete loss, when suddenly the irrational urge to burst into laughter threatens to overcome her. She bites down on her hysteria so hard she draws blood. And when she looks up, Ana-Lucia is staring at her suspiciously like she _has _lost her mind, with a defensive glare. And Kate's heart jumps into her throat as Ana-Lucia _advances_ -

"Y' got something to _say_ to me, Kate?"

And as Ana-Lucia stares down at her, real_, so real_, Kate looks up in horror as she brings herself to whisper defiantly,

"_You're dead."_

A brief flicker of emotion fleets across Ana's features as she stares down… but then she gives a harsh laugh, furrowing her brow, as she says in a low, incredulous voice…

"Are you… out… of your _mind!_ Do I _look_ dead to you?"

Kate stares up at her in shock, she can only shake her head. Ana rolls her eyes and starts away bored with this crazy conversation. "You lost it… _Christ_…"

And as Ana-Lucia returns her book to the shelf, Kate's heart grinds to a painful halt. Because as Ana casually flips the cashier a dollar for a bookmark and saunters from the store with her self assured swagger, the bullet hole in her gut glistens dark beneath the lights.

For the thousandth time over the past hours, Sawyers eyes flick nervously to the clock. Eleven fifteen._ Eleven fifteen…! _He forces his heart to still, drinks more to quell the rising tide of worry which has crept up on him slowly since he had returned to find the cabin empty four hours ago. He had returned bearing excuses as to why he had been late getting back, and vowed he would only admit going for a drink with Earl if things got ugly. But he was entitled to a damn drink, he assured himself, and if she couldn't handle that, then she would just have to deal with it.

But when he found the lights off and no trace that Kate had returned, he was confused. The bookstore was less than five minutes away. She couldn't still be there…

At first, he refuses to acknowledge the possibility she could have been caught. Kate is smarter than that. If Shaft or Marshmallow Fluff had shown up, he is certain she would have found a way to give them the slip somehow. Hell, she's a pro at this game… right?

But as the hours roll on, first doubling then multiplying, he gives into the dark thoughts. He should have _known_ letting her go alone was a bad idea. The scenarios race through his head – Kate engrossed in maps and then feeling a hand on her shoulder and the cool clasp of metal around her wrists. Maybe she had been right, and one of their so-called friends had sold them out for the impressive bounty on her head - the news stated it as 60,000 for any sightings leading to conviction. Maybe she had let her guard down, maybe gotten caught up watching the storm or gotten sick and been unable to keep her wits about her –

The JD burns. But he pours himself another, relishing the way it leaves him breathless, the fire, the pain. He shouldn't have let her go alone. Although no words have ever been exchanged, she is his, his Freckles, his Amazonian Kate… _and_ _his responsibility. _

_You don't help people Jimmy. It's not in your nature…_

He grips his head furiously, hears ear-splitting crashing and as he stands in the centre of the room gasping for breath, he belatedly realizes he has cleared the counters, overturned the table. He sinks to the end of the bed, and steadies himself. Blood trickles from a gash on his palm, and he looks to it indifferently…

He is just about to go and search for her, just needing to get out and do something, however futile, when the sound of a lock scraping back jars his gaze upwards. It is gone twelve when the door creaks open and she shambles in. She looks like she has just been through the damn Blitz, haggard and white as a sheet. For a moment he forgets how sick with worry he'd been. He rises in tired relief as she looks about the room with a strange, abstracted quality that he doesn't like…

"You been re-arranging…?" Her voice is faraway as she contemplates the wrecked room…

"Yeah," Sawyer grits, unable to believe she isn't explaining her ass off right now, "Extreme Makeover came in. _What do you think!"_

She only looks at him. No, not _at_ him, he realizes with a chill… _through _him.

"What is it?" He breathes, all accusations and charges of blame dying on his lips. He hasn't seen her this way since they were locked away in The Staff, and it suddenly gives him the shivers. "Where _were_ you?"

But Kate only pushes past him, eyes glittering and starts picking things up with jerky motions and he can only watch her in growing fury. She has no idea how worried he'd been. He _gets_ that she isn't used to answering to anyone else, having someone else worry about her, she doesn't understand the fuss… but that doesn't make it any easier to take. And now she's putting up those well-worn shields of hers, blocking him out.

"What… you're not gonna _tell_ me?"

"Don't ask me." Her voice is incredibly tight, her movements almost vicious.

"What!"

"_I mean it –"_ She heaves the toaster back onto the top, flings clothes onto the chair with increasingly frantic motions, _"Don't ask me --"_

It is all Sawyer can do to lock his arms at his sides and not _shake_ answers out of her as the blood slowly boils to his temples and the retorts come searing from his throat,

"_I'm sorry...!_ You vanish when there's Fed's on board, you're gone for hours, then you swan in here, looking like the bride of _Frankenstein_ and I can't ask _why!"_

"_Shut up –_ I mean it, just shut up okay _I saw her --"_

"_Shut up!"_ He echoes incredulously, "And saw _who!"_

"_Ana-Lucia!"_

Her scream reverberates around the room, echoes through the air as thunder rolls in from the open deck with an ominous report. He only looks at her, standing in the midst of the wrecked cabin with her fists clenched, arms taunt cables and he is lost. He can't speak, can't think.

Her anger seems to feed off his silence, fuelled by his total lack of belief and she advances imploringly, eyes blazing with a cold, fierce glare. "Down at the bookstore. I'm serious, _I saw her --"_

And then the total absurdity of her words sink in, and he is shaking his head, pushing past her towards the doorway. He needs more alcohol and he needs it _now_ –

"You need to go to sleep – damn seasickness has messed with your head, maybe your goin stir crazy, I dunno --"

"Don't, don't do that --" She stands and blocks the doorway and his escape with a wild look, "I saw her, other people saw her, she was real –" Off his weary look she denies vehemently, "It's not in my head,_ I swear_, I'm not going crazy Sawyer – please _– you have to believe me…"  
_

As he feels her stare penetrating him, demanding an answer, he only looks to the floor, completely thrown. How can he believe her? If she ever asks him he'll tell her about the voices, he'll agree that they are real… but seeing dead people shopping down at the local Books Etc is another kettle of fish. He can't lie to her. Not anymore, not convincingly enough for her to believe him…

"Other _people_ saw her…" She whispers fiercely, but he can hear the steam failing in her. As he looks up, into that fragile white face, he can see she needs him to believe what she is saying. He gets what this is, gets that this could be a turning point for them. Because this isn't about seeing things now. As always, it is deeper… and he knows she is asking him to accept what she is saying, the way she had accepted his name. Regardless of what he believes, she needs to hear him believe her because she needs to hear that she isn't going crazy…

"Other people saw her, Sawyer_, I know it…"_ Her voice is a whisper now.

It damn near kills him saying these next words. Because he knows it isn't what she wants to hear, it isn't acceptance. He hates it, but he can't change it…

"You sure 'bout that, Freckles?"

She flinches. It is minute and she hides it quickly, but he sees the betrayal flicker through her on these words, and he hates himself that little more for it.

"Yes." She grits.

He takes her arms gently. He stares down at her, knowing it's not too late, that he could put his arms around her, make everything okay by just accepting what the hell she was _saying_…

But instead of drawing her close he moves her from the doorway, and opens it. Flipping a glance back, he says, "Night. Don't wait up."

Walking along the lurching corridors is difficult. He's decently drunk, and the damn liner's hit turbulence again. As he gropes his way into the 24hr drugstore, (he's now bought so much booze from here he's on first name terms with the clerk) all the bottles in the liquor aisle clink and twinkle overhead threateningly.

Everything is getting to him. The shelves are closing in, the clinking of the bottles is rising into a piercing trill that goes right through his head, and he can't get _away_ from the betrayal he saw in her eyes, as if he had failed her in some awful, unwritten way. But he couldn't accept what she was saying. How in hell could he? To accept it would be to admit they were going crazy, that far from the nightmare of Dharma being over now they had escaped the Island, it was only just beginning. If he were to agree with her, it meant there was a whole world of trouble waiting for them on the horizon…

Because if Dharma had anything to do with what Kate thought she saw (or _who_ Kate thought she saw, more to the point) then the organisation would never let them go. And as if on cue, as if he has somehow validated their presence, the voices swirl. He knows when they're coming, feels it as a cold sensation that shivers up his back, trembles all the way up inside from his gut and rushes with dizzying velocity upwards, always winding him, always making him nauseous and _faint_ –

_You're our specimen, specimen, SPECIMEN – _

He reels out of the aisle and damn near sends some unsuspecting shopper flying. He has to get out. He has to get out of this shop, off this ship, away from _them_ –

It takes him a moment to realize he lost his bottle on impact. Tearing dazed looks about, he drops to his knees as it rolls along the tilting floor –

… and coasts to a stop beneath a pink stiletto which halts it in it's tracks. Sighing in annoyance, he bends to pick it up – but the shoe doesn't budge. He shoots a dark look up –

"_You wanna move?"_

-- but his eyes halt. Those legs. Those long legs which he'd always sworn went straight up to her armpits, that he'd once imagined wrapped around him, pinning him tight…

His heart slows right down. Everything does. White noise seems to fill his head as it burns with whispers, vicious, cajoling, mocking in turn,

_Lightsticks? What does that even mean!_

_Look up, look up, LOOK UP –_

_You're in my light -- _

"Sticks…" The word escapes him in a rush of breath, and he can't look up, _he can't…_

"What the hell are you trying to do, knock me out? God you are so _retarded_ --"

He can't move his gaze. He is riveted. It can't be her. Millions of girls have legs to their armpits and whiny nasal voices. It can't be _her_ –

"Hey! You wanna pick that up? And don't even think about looking up my skirt or I swear to God I'll break your nose."

_Lord in holy fucking heaven on high._ He doesn't even need to look... such poetry could never come from nobody else.

His head acts as though a puppet's on strings, out of his control as he looks up, up dirty legs, past the shrivelled skirt and wispy blouse (stained with red…) and finally, meets the gaze of someone he'd marked long, long dead.

Shannon stares down with pissed off hands on hips, blonde hair still muddy and head cocked to one side expectantly. Expecting _what_ exactly, he's five sheets to the wind.

"_Great…"_ The word escapes him in a croak. And then as if this has awoken his tounge he is talking, not knowing what he is saying but babbling, "Wonderful. This is _beautiful!_ Kate gets Rambina and I get _Barbie!_ Why couldn't Libby have haunted me instead? Least she's a damn psychiatrist, could tell me _what the hell's just broke in my head --!"_

"Are you drunk!" Shannon backs away with a suspicious glower, and Sawyer unscrews the bottle of scotch in the middle of the aisle and swigs heavily,

"Nowhere near enough!"

"You're freaking me out now. I'm out of here, you seen my loser of a brother anywhere?"

"He's dead!" Sawyer cries, ignoring the looks of a passing group of teenagers, "And y'know what? _So are you!"_

"Okay, you don't calm down, I'm calling security -- " Shannon backs away, and Sawyer says fervently,

"You're fake alright?" He stretches a warding off hand out, trying to make her _understand_, but she is infuriated.

"I'm fake! _You're_ a redneck hick!"

"I'm not insulting you!" Sawyer grits, "You gotta _understand_, you're in my head, okay!"

"Oh my God you're such a pig! Could you _be_ anymore disgusting?" She retorts in outrage, and _Lord,_ Sawyer marvels wildly, _does she think I'm coming onto her!_ _Doesn't she know she's a damn ghost!_

He only glares at her in hopeless bewilderment, trying to work out these mysteries when she grows tired with this. And with a curse of annoyance and a flick of her hair she sticks her nose in the air and turns to leave.

He turns away, on auto-pilot, trying to process it all, in a cold sweat and feeling sick to his stomach when –

"Hey jerkoff!"

A cold hand clamps about his wrist and he freezes.

_She's touching him. _Arctic cold fingers pressing into his flesh, driving all the hairs on his arms up, she's _touching_ him, and how can she be fucking touching him _she's a GHOST – _

She's staring at him like he's just jumped out the nearest insane asylum, as she wrangles the bottle of scotch at him. "You forgetting something?"

Haunted, he pulls his arm away in a daze and backs away up the aisle, but unable to tear his eyes away from Shannon standing at the mouth of the aisle, staring at him…

He bumps into someone and turns frantically to find Jin studying the candy section. Gripping the small Korean tightly Sawyer bursts into a crazed beam –

"Chewie! Hey Chewie, y'see her! Jesus _Christ_, y'see!"

But Jin only looks to him blankly and Sawyer gestures harder, as though this will make the man _see_, "SHANNON! Annoying, blonde, dead!"

Suddenly Hurley (who Sawyer swears has taken residence in this here candy aisle) turns the corner and hastily drops his basket crammed full of sweets in a guilty attelpt at being covert.

"What, who moved the cracker aisle?" He feebly laughs nervously, but before he can back away Sawyer grips his arm –

_"Thank God,_ someone who ain't foreign or dead. What do you see near the checkout?"

Hurley flickers his eyes about uncertainly, trying to humour Sawyer but not having the faintest idea of where to start. "Uh… well I don't see any crackers. Lots of _candy_, but no crackers, which is what I'm after --"

_"Shannon!"_ Sawyer cries in frustration, "Standing at the counter with her stupid legs and her stomach all red! You see her, right Oreo? _Right?"_

Hurley is now looking at him in something like slowly dawning horror.

"Dude, that's not funny."

"Hurley, _come ON!"_ Fear is slowly lacing into Sawyer now, as his voice rises_, "She's right there!" _

But through Sawyer's red haze he can see Jabba is shaking his head, looking away upset and repulsed, and he only mutters in a quiet voice,

"Dude, that's _sick…"_

Hurley walks off, and places something in Jin's hand. As sawyer turns back to the front in frustration, he sees the aisle is clear. Shannon is gone… if she was ever there to begin with.

He turns in a daze to find Jin looking up at him indifferently. He holds out what Hurley just gave to Sawyer as some kind of peace offering.

"Twin—kie?"

And in his daze Sawyer can only look at him. This must truly be what going mad feels like.

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	29. Secrets

**Chapter 29**

**Secrets**

_You're beyond help, Katherine. Seeing people with bullets in their guts... you're losing it, and you can't deny it because you can feel it, can't you? You're sinking. Water's cold where you are. Cold, and deep, and oh-so dark… and it's like you're drowning, and clinging onto a life preserver that's slowly taking in water. You know it's useless to resist the pull of the current, the drag of the tide. But you selfishly resist, because that's what you do. Clinging to him, your life preserver and refusing to believe what you know is the truth… _

_In the end, you both go under… and in the end, nobody gets saved. _

The voices are back. They returned to Kate in the witching hours, when all was dark and the ship still flailed blindly in the ongoing storm Sawyer had summoned for her.

_You expect too much. It's always been the way, and he can't keep you afloat anymore. Never could. And if you carry on down this road, you'll drag him down with you._

He didn't believe her. The simple betrayal of that rejection still stings her, as much as she hates it, tries to bury it. He didn't _believe_ her… and he isn't here when she needs him. Her foolish, naïve words of hope to Grace ring hollowly in her ears as she bites back a strangled laugh of resentment, her eyes tracing the outlines of the shadowy, empty room. Who is she to give anyone advice when her own life is so irretrievably fucked up?

_You need to go to sleep – damn seasickness has messed with your head, maybe your goin stir crazy, I dunno –_

As the boat rocks and weaves wildly over the churning waves, Kate can distantly hear a baby crying. Her heart lurches into her throat as the waves dip and buck, before she realizes who is next door. The sound is coming through the wall, it's _real_, not some delusionary trick of her mind. It is _Aaron. _And then her thoughts threaten to go to a darker place, so she fixes her gaze on the clock through the darkness. Her Blue room is beckoning, a place she has barricaded herself from now since her lapse in the cell. But she refuses to let herself succumb to weakness. Only four more hours till daylight. Four. Such a small number… she can do this. _She can._

_You sure 'bout that, Freckles?_

Four, three, two, one. Just count down the hours…

_Night. Don't wait up._

But still, she waits. Ensconced in the darkness, sleep eludes her, as it always does. Her armoury of defences is running dangerously low, and as she waits for him to return, she realizes just how exposed he makes her feel. Infallible when he is near, and defenceless when he is gone.

Suddenly she flushes with anger. No – not anger. This is searing and vicious, this is stronger. This is _rage. _Deep, dark and potent, it flames through her insides as she brings her knees to her chest beneath the sheets. She had never signed up for this, had never given him permission to wordlessly erode tiny sections of her time-worn barricades she had tended so long. When did she cross the line of being with him because she had no other option, to feeling like she _has_ no other options which don't somehow include him?

And hot on the heels of her fury, kicks in what she recognizes as her defence mechanisms. She wonders for the hundredth time whether she should pack her things and leave him here. But the thought is too fleeting, to unreal to consider anymore somehow. Whether she knows _when_ she crossed the line with him is irrelevant, now. The only thing which anchors her is that she has _crossed_ it. The damage that they will do to each other and themselves as a consequence may be irreparable, but there is no going back.

_You can't seriously think he gives a damn about you? You really are going insane little Katie --! If he cared, he'd BE HERE -- _

Suddenly her stomach bucks. The seasickness hits her in waves as a flurry of white lights blur her vision. Stumbling up and into the bathroom, she empties the contents of her stomach then slumps back against the cool tiles, resting her hot head back with a groan.

_So what if he cares for you? When did that ever mean shit in this world? Look at what happened to everyone else who cared about you – they're all DEAD --_

When she opens her eyes, first she doesn't recognize what she is looking at. A paper bag peeks out of her backpack, which she has dropped near the doorway. She topples the bag over with her foot, and the bag crackles across the tiles.

Kate picks up the pregnancy test with wide, unseeing eyes… as goosebumps rise over her arms, and a shadow falls over her. She doesn't need to look up. Inside, she can feel who it is. Her head is buzzing nastily, whispers clamouring crazily, and she knows.

"What do you want?"

Ana-Lucia slouches in the doorway with a disinterested air of casualness. "Ah, y'know. Y'looked kinda freaked when I last saw you, figured you could use somebody to shoot the breeze with."

Kate notices Ana never said _friend_. They were never friends, nor would they ever have the chance to be. Ana's dark eye's light on Kate's hands.

"What'ya got there?"

There is no way of hiding it now. _Even if she knows,_ Kate suddenly thinks, _Ana can't tell anybody because she's in my mind. She's not REAL. _

So Kate parts her hands so Ana can see. Her brow lines for a moment, then Kate hears her sinks to the floor. After silence for an uncomfortable pause, Kate brings her gaze up. Ana is chewing on her lip with a look Kate has never seen before, and could never place. Its somewhere between fear, sorrow and unadulterated loathing. It chills her, suddenly.

"Didn't know you and the Doc were on such friendly terms." Ana tries to force a smile, "Should I break out my formal gear?"

"Ana, it's not… It's nothing to do with Jack." It still physically hurts to say Jack's name, still brings so many bad memories rushing forth… and then she realizes.

"You… you don't know."

"What?" Ana meets her gaze defensively.

"Jack died…" Kate says softly, "Back on the Island."

"He died…? How?" Ana breathes in disbelief.

"I don't know. I only know he did."

Ana looks away, gritting her teeth. "Poor guy. Being dead ain't all its cracked up to be."

Kate wants to ask her why she's here, why she's doing this, but fears she doesn't have the strength to handle the answers... when suddenly her eyes flash with a brittle flare of hope. It galvanizes her, and she forces herself to ask –

"Have you seen him? Wherever it is you are? Could you see him, _maybe find him –?"_

Ana shrugs uneasily, "Look, I don't know how this works, okay? I don't know what the hell kinda afterlife this is supposed to be or why in hell you can see me when nobody else can. And I wouldn't know where to start looking for him okay? How do you know he even made the boat?"

Kate looks away feeling absurdly crushed. She should have known it was foolish to hope for. Suddenly her throat locks. Why couldn't she have seen Jack instead of Ana-Lucia? He meant so much. He could have _helped_ her…

She clenches her teeth, ramming down the pain and forcing herself into the present reality where a terrible task is waiting to be done. She feels Ana's eyes on her as she clasps the pregnancy kit…

"You ever taken one of these?" She asks through a dry mouth. Ana doesn't respond for a moment, seems to be reliving something, something horrible…

"Yeah." Ana's tone is curt, brisk as ever, but her lip curls around the words as though they taste bad. "Not something I'd planned. I'm guessing from the look of you, you're in the same boat huh?"

Kate only returns her stare, wondering what in hell made this woman sitting before her, cross-legged with her stomach all torn apart so bitter. Ana brings her wounded gaze up to her and sighs bitterly. "So whose the proud daddy? I'm taking it the Island didn't endow you with the powers of immaculate conception, right?"

"Sawyer." Kate say's softly, feeling a rush of hot embarrassment and shame under Ana's close scrutiny as she waits for her scathing retort, her laughter. But when it doesn't come, Kate lifts her head up to see Ana looks almost… _sad_.

"That's weird… I mean, good for you guy's n' all… but its weird." She meets Kates eyes regretfully and says, "I did it for the gun, y'know. It didn't mean anything."

Kate sighs tiredly, "Did what?"

And Ana only looks to her uncertainly… then her eyes crinkle and she breaks out into a sardonic smile. With a shake of her head she sighs, "He didn't tell you. Why doesn't that surprise me?"

"Tell me," Kate is growing impatient, "Tell me what?"

"I kinda… look, I needed a gun okay? He had one. So… I took it."

Kate only looks to her, not getting her point in the slightest and Ana lets out her breath slowly. "Use your imagination, Kate. The guys a _con artist_. Theft by seduction, so I heard? Now, what's the only way you can play a guy like that at his own game…?"

"You played him for a gun?" Kate's eyes flash, "You're disgusting --"

"No, I _screwed_ him for a gun." Ana grits, averting her eyes as Kate's words die in her throat… and Ana looks away as a red blush stains her cheeks, "Anyway you look at it, he was more than happy to get played, Kate."

The reality of what this ghostly Ana-Lucia is saying doesn't sink in right away. Kate only stares at her in betrayal, hating her and hating him more. He had _known_ she had feelings for him, it had been plain to see no matter how hard she had tried to hide it. He'd known, and he had done it all the same. It felt like being cheated on in the worst way imaginable. Because the next day, no, maybe even hours later, he had probably sauntered by her with that lazy grin, sizing up his next target.

"Get out. _Get away – get OUT of my head –"_ Kate breathes in a deadly cold voice, and Ana rises regretfully. Before she leaves finally, she turns with iron mettle in her voice and sadness in her eyes.

"You want my advice? That things positive, you get it _sorted_, soon as we dock."

Kate only looks up, stunned. "I want your advice, I'll ask."

Looking away, defeated, Ana Lucia sighs, "You're beyond help."

Sawyer sits out on the deck, the empty bottle of whiskey swinging in his hands. The roar of the black ocean does nothing to soothe his frantic mind, cool his burning head. He can't process what is going on anymore. And as much as he hates it, he knows it isn't the alcohol. It's whatever is inside his head, corrupting his thoughts, driving him insane… it is Dharma and he knows they're taking him over. Will this nightmare ever end? How far do they have to run to get away from this!

The clack of footsteps on the wet deck brings him from his thoughts, and his eyes flit to their source. Pink stilettos. _Hello_ insanity…

"Well if it isn't my favourite vision of death," He drawls, sighing and draining the last of the whiskey. "I'm still not drunk enough to talk to you, y'know."

Shannon rolls her eyes and sits beside him, slouching like she'd rather be anywhere else. "What are you even _doing_ out here? God, its freezing."

"What am I doing here!" His laughter burns, "I'm sorry, I'm not the one who should be someplace else – say, maybe in a coffin or rodeoing it down on a cloud somewhere with a damn harp?"

"I know this is weird," She sighs uneasily pushing a dirty blonde strand of hair behind her ear, "And I kinda went off the deep end the last time I spoke to you. It just freaked me out. I mean, cut me some slack, I haven't spoken to anybody in months."

"Company's hard to come by in Limbo, huh?" He sparks a cigarette and sighs smoke.

"Very funny." She crinkles her eyes in a deliberately _unfunny _way. "God, do you think this is fun for me? Y'know I do have better things to do with my afterlife than haunt your ungrateful ass all day –"

"Like _what!"_ Sawyer breathes incredulously, "Manicure, hair appointment? Hell, I'll bet there's graveyards of corpses to be impressing right?" He enunciates each word as he realizes the hopeless absurdity of this conversation, "And I didn't _ask_ you to haunt me!"

She gives him a vile look and to his horror he sees her chin is quivering. Princess is on the edge, here. Christ, she's an honest to goodness walking talking ghost with a bullet hole in her stomach. What is there to be upset about? Least she can get some damn _peace_ in Limbo. What he wouldn't give to go without talking to another living soul for a couple of months…

"I can't find Boone." Her eyes glitter at him as her voice trembles fiercely, _"I don't know how to find him."_

"He's probably tucked up in his grave, sweetheart. Right back where you should be." He breathes with an air of frustrated patience, unable to look at her. He hates crying women, and _ghostly_ crying women really take the biscuit. It's not even like he can shake any sense into her or put the moves on her to take her mind off things. He can only talk, and Lord knows, he's ain't got a chance in hell of doing _that_ right.

"_You bastard…"_ Shannon's words are hard and cold, as she stands with jerky anger. "Why the hell did you have to see me huh? Why couldn't it have been Jack? He'd know what I should do. Christ I know he had a pole up his ass sometimes but at least he would listen, he could _help_ - you're useless. Thanks for _nothing_ –" She grips her bag tightly and leaving him with a hateful look she shakes her head, "Burn in hell _Sawyer_."

Sawyer thinks later, that if Shannon had stuck around instead of vanishing again like the prima-donna she was, he would have tried to make it up to her. But he knows better. Because when he looks up to find her gone, all he feels is an colossal surge of relief which hides the tiny, niggling feeling of guilt that she possibly now hates his guts even more than before.

_Tigers and stripes James. She said it – Jack could help. You're useless. Burn in hell._

"Right back at ya, Sticks." He sighs, and drags himself to his feet.

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	30. Cold coffee and anklebiters at dawn

**Chapter 29**

**Cold coffee and ankle biters at dawn**

As Kate lies down to sleep, she forces her mind not to linger on the test. She will block it from her mind, at least for the next few hours. She feels like her world is slowly imploding, and she desperately needs sleep. In bed, beneath the covers, where nothing can harm her.

But she hasn't been in bed five minutes before she hears banging next door and raised voices. A baby crying. Slamming surfaces.

Kate sits warily, senses on alert. Carefully, hoping to take her mind off her own problems, she eases the cabin door open to find Claire sitting outside her room, head in her hands. Blinking against the bright light in the corridor, Kate is instantly concerned.

"Claire, what is it? What's wrong –"

Claire jumps, and hastily wiping the tears from her red face, breathes in a broken voice, "It's nothing. I'm stupid, I'm just being _stupid_ –"

"No…" Kate kneels besides her, rubbing the girls arms worriedly, "…you're _shaking_…"

Claire bites her lip and meets Kate's gaze, trying to be normal, trying to find it in her to laugh – but to Kate's growing concern, she sees _Claire can't do it._

"What is it?" Kate breathes firmly, _"Did Charlie do something –?"_

"_No,"_ Claire laughs shakily, "Charlie… Charlie's _fine_. He…" Claire's voice grows choked, "… sometimes I think he's a better parent than me."

Kate's eyes widen in surprise. "Claire, that's ridiculous okay? You can't seriously _believe_ that – you're a _wonderful_ mother –"

"No – you don't _understand_ –" Claire is getting distressed, "Charlie's got this way with Aaron okay? He's so calm, so natural, nothing _gets_ to him. But… but _me_…"

Claire struggles to reign herself in under Kate's sad gaze, and slowly, Claire reveals,

"He wouldn't stop crying. Just… wouldn't… _stop_. I did everything I could think of, change of diaper, milk, trying to get him to _sleep_ – but nothing _worked_…" A note of resentment creeps into her voice, "And then I handed him to _Charlie_… and he stopped. Just like that. Just like it was me, like it was my fault, _like_ _I was the problem…"_

"Claire," Kate shakes her head, "Honey, you're not making any sense –"

"I never asked for this, Kate." Claire's eyes blaze with fire, "I love my baby, I've never loved anyone more in my life, I swear to you. But I'm so scared… because what if that's not enough? Just loving someone doesn't mean you're what's right for them, does it?"

The meaning of Claire's words cut right through Kate. How could she even begin to reassure her friend when she was privately suffering from the very same fears?

"I mean, look at me!" Claire shakes her head in frustration, "I'm a wreck. Who was I to think I could do this alone? I _can't_ –"

"But you don't have to be alone." Kate says through a suddenly dry mouth, "He's there for you, when you need him he's in there with Aaron, putting him down for you –"

"Charlie's sweet." Claire's lip curls as her eyes meet Kate's, "But you _know_ what I mean, Kate. I am alone. In _here."_ Claire gestures to her head, swiping away tears. "He won't stick around. Guys never do. And then I'll be left alone again, to bring up a baby I can't even go anywhere _near_ right now…"

Kate just holds her close, unable to answer her. Right now, with everything that is happening, Kate can't do it.

Finally Claire pulls back, standing and wiping their eyes. They both know there is no way they can answer these questions, and so after a moment turn back to their respective rooms. In her doorway Claire turns back.

"Oh -- did you do it?"

"Do what?" Kate shifts uneasily. A slow and unsteady knot is forming in her stomach, because she knows what is coming…

Claire's eyes warm, knowingly. "Make sure…?"

Averting her eyes, Kate breathes, "Yeah."

"And...!"

Kate looks outwards, the reality of her situation crashing home as she whispers,

"Negative." Kate lets out a rush of breath, "I should have known, right?"

"Negative…" Claire echoes, brow furrowing. After a moment she says, "Single line right?"

"Right…" Kate nods.

"And you're sure?"

"Sure I'm sure." Kate smiles widely, letting the relief course through her. Claire studies her a moment, then nods, returning her smile tiredly.

"Night then," Claire rolls her eyes, "Or morning, I guess."

"Yeah," Kate grins in sleepy glee, "Morning…!"

As the sun rises in pink rays across the rippling ocean, Sawyer finishes packing his things. Kate is asleep in bed, grabbing a few hours of sleep before they hit dry land. He resisted the urge to wake her and tell her about Shannon, no matter how much he needed to tell somebody. Sleep will be hard to come by in the next few weeks, months maybe, and he is not about to deprive her of any she can get.

As he sits and sobers up on the deck, he hears Aaron crying from next door and it drives down into his skull. Wincing, he looks up as the door is yanked open and Claire struts out onto the deck. She is startled to see him, and he sleepily raises his cup of cold coffee to her.

"Hi," Claire breathes, "How you doing?"

"Been better. Good to talk to someone who ain't transparent."

"I know," Claire sighs. Aaron is still whining, and stressfully she rocks him. "These holiday campers don't know the half of it huh?"

"Indeed they don't." Sawyer sighs, and neither does she. If only she knew what he'd been seeing. The ankle biter quietens at the sound of his voice, and it always creeps him out when the kid does that. What's so damn special about his voice?

"Would you…" Claire stutters, unwilling to be a burden, but growing so stressed she no longer cares. She gestures to Aaron, "Would you just hold him a moment? He really seems to like you, y'know."

"I drank an entire bottle of Jack." He sighs, standing and at least attempting an excuse, "Sure you trust me? Don't wanna drop the little turnip-head."

"Quit making excuses, you're steady as anything." Claire slaps his arm, then lowers Aaron over the barrier between their decks into Sawyer's strong arms. The kid weighs next to nothing, and Sawyer inwardly groans. The damn kid's all soft and smooth, and soon as he touches the brat, it stops its bawling. Just like that. God, he _hates_ this kid.

"See…?" Claire's shoulders slump in relief, and they both bask in the peaceful dawn for a moment. "You've got a knack. Wish I did."

Sawyer raises an incredulous eyebrow as he props the kid up on his chest, "You can't be serious. I gotta knack for _making_ babies sweetheart – you're the pro at _raising_ 'em."

Claire suddenly laughs. It's soft and considered, so as not to wake anybody or startle Aaron, but it's real, not stressed, not strained. He suddenly feels like he's passed some kind of test that Claire had set for him, like he has finally earned some semblance of her respect. Not that he _cares, _but…

"You'll look after her, right?" Claire says softly. The question is soft, and hangs on the breeze awhile before being carried out to sea.

Sawyer doesn't need to ask who she's talking about, and he hasn't got the strength to be evasive or deflect the question. So looking down at the little warm bundle of hell on his chest, he mutters,

"Aim to try. She ain't exactly the type needs looking after though, is she?"

"I don't know," Claire looks distant, "She might surprise you."

"The girl always does." He sighs, looking at Aaron who hiccups over his shoulder – and blurts a stream of milk down Sawyers back.

Claire bites back laughter as Sawyer's eyes widen in outrage. "God – Christ!"

Dissolving into laughter, Claire takes back Aaron who is gurgling happily as her eyes sparkle, "He had wind! Thank you!"

"Thank you!" Sawyer grits, "How's about thanking me with twenty dollars for a new shirt!"

"It's milk Sawyer, not toxic waste. It'll wash out!" She laughs as he raises his arms, tries looking down his back in disgust. "That shirt should be burned anyway."

"Like I'm gonna take wardrobe advice from someone whose best accessory was a _bump."_ He mutters grouchily but Claire only rolls her eyes.

"I'm gonna put him down. And you might wanna wash that," She smiles, eyes twinkling, "Wouldn't want it to set would we?"

Baring a smile, he turns back into the cool cabin, dragging his shirt over his head and holding it out before him like it's infected with the damn plague. Dropping it into the trash, he mulls over the _nerve_ of that kid when –

"What are those marks?"

Jumping, he turns to see Kate watching him from the bed.

"Marks?" He says, completely baffled.

"On your back." She says, watching him intently, unsure whether she can confront him about this, "Red marks. Like old scratches…"

His forehead wrinkles, but she catches the momentary flicker in his gaze, knows she's thrown him… and her heart begins it's slow descent.

"Well you wanna screw in a broom closet, expect a few scratches, right?" He sighs, shrugging into a semi-clean tee shirt.

But Kate only holds up her hands. "No nails. And if anyone got scratched out of that, it was me."

She watches his face shift…_and she knows she's got him._ He's up against a wall.

"You're unbelievable, you know that…?" She says in a carefully controlled voice, and watches as he turns to her slowly, hopelessly confused.

"Excuse me!"

"I don't know why I ever thought this could work." She breathes, getting out of the bed, fully dressed, "You'll never change."

"You wanna shed a little _light_ on this situation?" He splays his hands, "Caus I'm five sheets to the wind here. If it's about what happened earlier, I _believe_ you alright, I saw someone too --"

"It's not about _earlier_," She grips her backpack, shoving her possessions inside, "It's about what you did, admit what you did, you _know_ what I'm talking about –"

She catches him only looking at her with a defensive look and bracing herself, she says, "You slept with her didn't you?"

"What are you _talking_ about –"

"Ana-Lucia." It's like coughing up a leaden weight, as she braces herself for his reaction and finishes, _"That's_ what I'm talking about."

That name is like a stake of ice pounding through his goddamn heart, as Kate stares across the room at him. Not vicious, or angry even… it's worse than that. The exposed disappointment on her face gets him, and he almost wishes she would get angry, throw something. Then at least it was a fight, and he could handle that. But not that look. It's a damaged look, and hints at being irreparable…

"_That's_ what those old scratches are. _That's_ why you can't look me in the eye, why you never could when _her_ name came up –"

"What, am I supposed to _apologise_ to you?" He protests in outrage, "Jesus girl, we weren't even – you and me, we –"

"You can't even say it, can you?" She says in a quiet voice, and he hates her suddenly. Hates her for making him feel so damn awful about something which had meant so little.

"We weren't _together_." He grits, "And expecting anything outta you was like expecting blood outta stone."

She pushes past him into the bathroom and he lets her go, knowing this isn't going to get them anywhere. He can't resist a parting blow –

"I get scratches, you get caught in a net! We're _EVEN_ –"

She slams the door on him. After stewing for a moment, he gets as far away from her as he can, curling up in a sea sprayed corner on the deck, watching the grey sky dawning fresh and cool overhead. Somewhere in the past half hour, they have come up on land. It sweeps by in the distance, like a ribbon of shadow on the horizon.

After a period, Kate joins him and sits on the lounger staring out at the sea. Something vital has changed about her that he cannot grasp. All her pain resides right near the surface now. She has that distant look about her she always got when she would sit on the beach, just staring out to sea for hours, he thinks. The look which had captivated and endlessly irritated him, always drawing him to her like a moth to a flame. And Christ, how she burns.

"I'm sorry." Kate says, seemingly from a great distance, and it hurts because he knows she isn't. He hurts because he has wounded her in a way he never wished.

"It's none of my business." She continues, struggling to find the right words – the _respectable_ words, he thinks. "You're right. Whatever we have now… _whatever_ _it_ _is_… we didn't have it then. You don't owe me anything."

"What _do_ we have…?" He says softly, dreading her answer.

She looks to him deeply a moment, drinking him in… and then to his total surprise, she moves to her knees beside him and hunkers down next to him in the corner.

"I don't know." She says with a shaky breath, "But I know I don't want to leave this ship alone. I don't want you going your way, me going mine, never knowing what if we… if we… "

"…Gave it a shot?" He finishes for her, and her gaze meets his, all green and lush and he feels like the sun has climbed out from behind the clouds again. Because she only looks up at him, nods, and rests her head on his chest. He rubs her cold arms to keep the chill off, and knows he has to say his piece… that now they've started talking about Ana, he wants it all out there. Too much of this relationship is being built on misunderstandings and half-truths… and although he fears he'll never have her secrets and never be able to share his, he needs this thing, this _one_ _thing_ to be _straight_…

Kate feels him growing distant beneath her, as they watch the land growing ever closer. And she feels him take a deep breath beneath her, and say softly,

"It didn't mean anything."

She pulls back so she can look at him, and he is staring out towards the land which is rushing by, as though looking straight back through time itself,

"Hell, almost wish it did. I was that woman's last fix in this world, and it didn't mean a thing to me."

"She played you." Kate smiles up at him, "Can't believe you fell for it…"

"Hey…!" Sawyer looks down to her, jarred into the present reality again, "She was mighty _convincing_ – anyway, maybe I would have given her the gun anyway, ever think of _that_, genius? That maybe I played _her?"_

"Look at it whatever way you want," Kate grins, deliberately baiting him now, "She beat you at your own game, fair and square. I kind of admire her --!"

"Well the Doc beat you at yours too – the saints got their halos dirty together!"

Shivering, Kate stands and moves back towards the cabin and shoots him a cheeky grin, attempting to put it all behind them. "I never did the dirty with him!"

"Liar!" He calls after her knowingly, and in the doorway, she shoots him a quizzical look like he's going slightly nuts.

"When he told you we got caught in a net Sawyer, he _meant_ it. Literally. A net! One of Danielle's, probably."

And as she leaves Sawyer to take in this new information, she re-enters the bathroom and slowly bolts the door. Turning around, all her good humor falls away like the façade it was. She kneels and frantically roots through the garbage until her hands retract a long thin box.

Her hands tremble as she sits on the cold tiles. The buzzing of the lights, the continual roar of the liners machinery and the ocean are all suddenly deafening. She had lied to Claire. She had taken the test… but had no idea of the result. She couldn't bring herself to look. Her pride had gotten in the way.

_I'd know if it wasn't seasickness. I'd FEEL it –_

Her fingers dig inside the box and brush against cool plastic. Her heart skips a beat and a rush of electricity tingles through her.

Breathing hard, Kate digs down deep and swallowing her pride she pulls the pregnancy test from the box.

2 lines.

_You could get a false negative in the first couple of weeks, but a positives a positive. _

Gritting her teeth, she coldly snaps it in half and flushes it down the toilet.

_A positive's a positive._

**PLEASE REVIEW! PLEASE REVIEW! PLEASE REVIEW! PLEASE REVIEW! PLEASE REVIEW! **


	31. A New World

**Chapter 31**

**A New World**

As the ribbon of land had grown into a wide stretch of bustling coastline, Sawyer had watched the last of the dawn fade from the sky to be gradually replaced with a veil of low hanging fog which sprung up around the steadily growing shore. Beads of sea spray fleck his jacket, and the bracing wind has long numbed his cheeks – but he feels like he's burning up, his head full of cotton wool. He uneasily palms it off on the fact he's been seeing ghosts and has had next to no sleep lately… he's _not_ getting sick, not now. He can't, refuses to let himself. He may be run-down as hell, but as he stares out at the approaching shoreline, he feels adrenaline begin to flicker through him, anticipating what will come. Stubbornly telling himself that he's fine, he shoulders his backpack and heads grouchily towards the deck doors.

"Are you ready to bail outta here or what?" When he gets inside he stops in surprise. In the brief twenty minutes he had eaten and had a smoke outside, Kate has completely cleared the cabin of all traces of them. All that remains to prove they had ever been here is their trash in a neat bag by the doorway, next to Kate's sturdy backpack. It's eerie – the damn place really is _immaculate_. He suddenly has a childish urge to go jump on the perfectly made bed just to see her face, begrudgingly decides against it.

He looks to Kate in wordless surprise to find her in the bathroom, where she sits on the sink counter and efficiently polishes the mirror with religious-like zeal. To further add to the sheer strangeness of it all, as if it isn't enough that Kate, who was happy enough to wrestle with him on muddy jungle floors is a _clean_ freak, he sees she's also using the last of his flask of vodka to do it!

He picks it up in disbelief, meeting her gaze in the sparkly mirror.

"The hell are you doing! You're using the last of my stash to spring _clean_?"

"Wear these," She pushes a pair of thick woollen gloves at him, and he only looks to her like she's finally lost the plot. She gives an exaggerated sigh and turns to face him, sitting on the counter with cool expertise. "Fingerprints are a problem."

"You gotta use _my_ alcohol to solve _your_ problems?"

But Kate isn't really listening - her mind is at work. "Alcohol's pretty good at getting up the natural oils which makes up the bulk of 'em. We gotta wipe _every_ surface in here before we leave –" She shoots a determined look around the cabin, "Soap and water wont get rid of prints, it just leaves a bunch of smudges which can be reconstructed using computer imaging."

"Well ain't you just a goldmine of criminal information...!" He glares at the mirror, stifling the urge to lick the mirror. "Sweetheart the Feds think you're dead! Ain't this a little much, even by your standards?"

"If anything happens before we leave here, you'll thank me for this."

He whistles in begrudging appreciation, pulling on the gloves, realizing he's nestled right in the crook of her legs. Never one to miss an opportunity, he bats his lashes up at her… "Don't suppose there's anything in the fugitive handbook about solving a certain problem of _mine_…?"

She narrows her eyes down at him, her steely resolve fading a little in his close proximity. How does he do that! She had her mind locked in a methodical clean down of this place, and it surprises her at how easily he distracts her… "Depends what the problem is…"

He only moves in closer, kisses her and she responds before pulling back. _Some_ _problem_, she thinks to herself as he moves down to her neck, but she doesn't quite have enough willpower to get right back to business.

"Well sex isn't the answer…" She murmurs, the sensation of his coarse bristles on her neck sending tingles down her spine.

"Damn right you are," Sawyer breathes, bringing his mouth back up to hers with a devilish grin, "Sex is the question – _yes_ is the answer."

She laughs as he covers his mouth with hers, bringing his gloved hands up her sides.

As Sawyer packs away the last of his things (which Kate sealed in a damn zippy _bag_) he watches her bustle around the room in a flurry of organized chaos… and he gets the uneasy feeling that he's seeing Kate at work, on the run. It's like seeing a secret act being performed, a well-worn ritual, and suddenly he feels absurdly touched that she is doing this in front of him, like he has somehow worked his way deep enough into her confidence to be allowed to witness this intensely private act.

This brings a small surge of pride with it, as he is reminded of the truth of his words to Claire out on the deck – this is a woman more than capable of taking care of herself… but at the same time it makes him uneasy to see. She's a pro at this game. His fortes are deception and theft by seduction – hell, he never would have thought of rubbing the place down with alcohol…

The thought leaves him with an unsettle flurry in his stomach. If she really is this methodical, this meticulous and precise, how long until he screws something up, until he forgets to wear gloves and leaves prints somewhere that can be traced?

How long has he got left? And what possible good can he do her? He is reminded, yet again, that although they may share a hell of a spark, he is essentially falling for a woman who he knows fundamentally nothing about.

"Before we leave, hang the cleaners sign on the door handle okay – careful not to leave your prints on the sign." Her eyes flash around the room finally, scrutinizing everything, "We want this room vacuumed, cleaned, and touched by the crew as soon as possible."

There's a quiet knock on the front door and they both freeze. Startled, their eyes fly to each other.

"It can't be cleaners –" Kate whispers fiercely, "Not yet, we haven't docked!"

"You ain't taking no chances," Sawyer mutters, bundling Kate into the bathroom quickly as that knock comes again, _insistent now –_

"_Wait -" _She hisses but he closes the door. If anyone's taking the rap for this, he'll do it. Hell, he's talked himself out of worse spots than this –

Taking a deep breath, he moves to the door and cracks it open.

"Good, you're still here!"

Sawyer could strangle the sunny heart attack standing before him. But instead, he only lets Claire push her way inside. Aaron is asleep in her arms.

"What are you tryin' to do to me!" He closes the door quickly.

"Where's Kate?" Claire looks around and Sawyer bangs a fist on the bathroom door. Kate comes out uneasily and looks to Claire in surprise.

"Where's _Charlie_?" Kate looks about, "He's leaving with you right?"

"Yeah." Claire smiles, "Charlie's asleep."

"That boys never happier than when he's sharpening his sleeping skills, huh?" Sawyer mutters grumpily and Kate digs an elbow in his ribs. He yelps indignantly and shoots her a pissed look.

"Why don't you go get rid of the trash huh? Somewhere discreet, okay? I'll finish up in the room and meet you out on the main deck. Near the life-rafts."

He shakes his head reluctantly, but is secretly glad to get out of here. If there's one thing he hates, its goodbyes. He grabs the trash but before he can make good his escape, Claire says,

"Bye then."

He turns uneasily and rolls his shoulders. "Yeah." His eyes flicker to the bundle of baby in her arms, "Good luck with the rug rat."

"Thanks." Claire smiles and he gives the small blonde a smile, then exits. Claire rests against the door as Kate double checks the deck and drags the heavy door closed, latching it. She feels a brief pang of regret that they are leaving here. This is perhaps the last relatively safe place they will find in a while, and it has served them well.

"I take it you're not giving yourself up…" Claire says in a soft voice, "So where are you gonna go?"

"There's someone we need to find." Kate breathes, buckling her backpack and shoots one last look of scrutiny around the room. As the docking tannoy blares, startling them both, Kate approaches Claire and they exchange one last look.

"You're sticking with Sawyer?"

"I guess so... we'll see." Kate says uncertainly… and they hug tightly. Kate suddenly realizes that she has never had girlfriends before, has always been the tomboy that all the girls made fun of. So Claire has been her first good female friend, and saying goodbye is harder than she thought. Suddenly she wishes they could stay close, that she could watch Aaron grow up, get to know Claire better and help her through the trials of her motherhood… the reality of Kate's maternal state threatens to tip her thoughts towards somewhere bad, and she forces a smile on her face. No time to think about it now.

"You look after this little guy okay? When I find someplace safe, I'll get in touch. I want photographs." Kate laughs, is shocked to feel her throat tighten with emotion, "I'm gonna be like one of those annoying aunts always asking for _photographs_ –"

"I'll send them." Claire's face is lined with worry, her icy blue eyes sparkling with concern as she presses a scrap of paper into Kate's gloved hand, "Here. This is where I'll be staying. Charlie's got some friends in Seattle, so if you're ever stuck…if things don't work out, this is where I'm at."

Taking the scrap of paper, Kate is moved as Claire finishes, "But you be careful, okay? Please_, just be careful."_

"I will. You too."

"Good luck," Claire smiles as she opens the door, "And stay safe."

Kate nods as her friend leaves, and suddenly feels overpowered by the thought of what will happen on the road. There will be no Claire to sit and chat to at night, no Charlie to listen play guitar and take her mind off things where she's going. No Jack to give her advice, steer her right, or Hurley to make her laugh so hard her stomach hurts. No more buffers that can diffuse the arguments and tension, to escape with or vent to. Just her and Sawyer, a man she feels irrevocably drawn to, yet knows so little about…

_But it isn't just the two of you now, is it Kate? _

The whispers bring chills to her. For the first time, in the quiet of the cabin, Kate comes to realize what this journey means, what it will entail. Running and hiding from the Feds, trying to find Garrett's wife, and…

…_this thing._ This _other_ thing, which she can't think about, mentally blocks out tight. Unconsciously, her hands rest on the flat of her stomach as she stands alone in the empty, immaculate room. Turning her thoughts to getting away, she shoulders her pack, and takes one last heavy hearted look at their cabin before closing the door on it for good.

The breeze on the main deck is strong, not benefiting from a shelter as theirs had, and so when Kate vacates their room and makes her way onto the main deck she is ill prepared for the force of the cold wind. She hides out on a secluded part of the deck near the life rafts where she waits, watching the coastline grow larger and larger. As the cruiser coasts into the harbour, Sawyer joins her.

"You get rid of it okay?"

"Yeah," Sawyers eyes sparkle mischievously, "Love to be a fly on the wall when Charlie wakes up."

"What did you do?"

"His guitar case was outside his room."

"You put our trash in his guitar case!"

"Yeah…!" Sawyer grins gleefully. "Call it a parting gift." He shifts, and Kate notices the look on his face – he is waiting to tell her something.

"Where else did you go?" She says, "You've been ages."

Sawyer's grin falls a little and he shrugs with mock nonchalance. "Went to the bank. Maxed out my card, got as much as I could lay my hands on."

"Don't you think that's going to look suspicious!" She turns on him, "If those Feds were suspicious of you Sawyer – and lets face it, who wouldn't be – the first thing they'll do is pull your credit records –"

"I _know_ that Colombo," He snaps, "But unless you planned on _walking_ all the way to wherever the hell we're going, we're gonna need something. Hell, its not like its enough for nobody to get suspicious of."

"How much did you get?" She says anxiously.

He sighs heavily, leaning on the wet railings… "Five hundred." Off her disappointed look he shrugs defensively, "I never needed to use that card before – look, I can't access my other accounts on here. But if we're passing back my way --"

"It'll be alright." Kate looks out to the sea, and the conversation subsides in the softly wailing wind. After a moment, she breathes, "I think we're in San-Francisco -- " She points to a towering bridge ahead in the mist, "That's the Golden Gate Bridge."

She looks outwards, wind whipping her hair about her, eyes drinking in the sights fleeting past – heart stopping views of majestic bridges, dainty Victorian houses, little cable cars ascending impossibly steep hills with apparent ease as the lights twinkle off of the silvery water of the ocean.

"I never made it this far west." Sawyer glances to her inquisitively – she has that distance in her eyes again, that remoteness that always tints his heart with sadness. "I was working my way west when I got caught. Got stupid… went to see my Mom. They caught me in the Greyhound station at Des Moines."

"Iowa, huh?" Sawyer muses. "I just knew you were a country gal,"

"I always wanted to make it to San Francisco…" Her eyes cloud, and he steels himself as he prepares for her to drift away from him into her own private ocean of pain and thoughts. He is surprised when he feels her arm slip through his, and he looks down to her, startled. Those penetrating jade eyes return his stare misty with an emotion he cannot place, as Kate smiles tentatively,

"I'm glad I finally made it here…" Her smile widens and he is suddenly reminded how beautiful she is, how stunningly beautiful as she whispers, "I'm glad I made it here with _you_."

The smile he can feel spreading across his cheeks is like a warm surge against the cold wind, and he slings an arm around her shoulders, drawing her to his chest. As she leans her head against him, he looks out across the bay as they draw up beneath the spectacular sight of the Golden Gate Bridge. As a flurry of tourists click away with their cameras and babble about it's beauty, Kate and Sawyer remain silent, just holding onto one another as they drink in the spectacle of their surroundings, both united for these brief minutes in fully cherishing how lucky they are to have made it here, together, against all the odds.

_She drew the short straw when she got left with you, little Jimmy Ford,_

This is like the gateway to a new life, a new world… and Sawyer suddenly feels a rush of anticipation, of excitement. They have enough money to get them started out on the road… and when that runs out, he'll pillage his accounts.

_You don't help people. It's not in your nature. _

He will provide for her. He'll do it, if only to prove to himself that he can.

"You think we should find someplace to hide out until these idiots have jumped ship?" Sawyer says as they move away from the crowd on the deck towards a stairwell to take shelter from the cold.

"No," Kate looks about thinking hard, "We go out as foot passengers, get in the middle of the crowd. The more people we can use for cover the better. They'll disguise us perfectly so long as we keep our heads down and none of the others from the Island see us, recognizes us."

Sawyer nods, wondering why in hell he didn't think of that. Its like their minds come at these kind of problems from completely opposite directions, yet again. Kate is studying her chunky lonely planet guide book intently.

"Looks like there's a used car dealership a couple of streets away from the dock," She points it out to Sawyer,

"You wanna spend the little we got on a car!" He looks to her belligerently, "Christ girl, we're standing on an entire hold of 'em, take your pick!"

"We're not stealing one," Kate says patiently, "Yeah I know it's the cheaper option, but right now, we need to play it safe – and smart. Cop's will be on us before we make it out of the state if we're in a stolen car – we can slap down $300 and buy a pile of _junk_ at this place with no questions asked and no id needed." Her eyes light up with the possibilities, "So long as its got the pink slip and a key, we buy it if it's _cheap_ and doesn't have anything a cop might stop us for a safety violation. Okay?"

He looks down at her and actually _laughs_. Damn, she irritates the hell out of him but the way she is looking at him right now is just too damn excited, like a kid, for him to stay mad. "Okay big spender," He growls gruffly, "We'll play it your way. Who needs to eat, huh?"

Amidst the babbling soup of fools with mid-life-crisis's and OAP's with infuriatingly slow moving asses, Sawyer moves through the crowd, his hand clenched tightly about Kate's as she follows behind him down the gangway and along the docking ramp. Could this place be any further removed from where they'd just spent the past months of their life together? The skyline around is that of twinkling great art deco skyscrapers, their summits cloaked in the early morning fog – suddenly he aches for the simple rise and fall of the Island's mountains, the warm air, the musical tinkle of the waves, as opposed to this white noise roar of the bay.

His heart pounds anxiously in his chest, and he doesn't think he ever hated crowds so much in his life. Yeah, he knows the drill, knows it's _safe – _but Lord, he's never felt more exposed, more wide open to recognition. He clenches Kate's hand tighter, as though easing up may cause her to be lost amongst the masses – he has a brief memory of how she was pulled away from him at that sappy wedding ceremony, and feels an uncomfortable knot tighten in his stomach as that feeling resurfaces… the feeling that they will be hopelessly pulled apart against all their best efforts. Jaw clenching, he lowers his head further and continues shambling forth with the crowds. For the time being, her hand is warm in his and that's all that matters.

As they make their way off pier 7 amongst a small crowd, they break off and after passing through a whitewashed parking lot they cut through a pretty embankment of palm trees before finally coming upon what looks like the waterfront promenade. Historic streetcars slowly trundle through the mist up its length, which is dotted with fishing piers, bars and restaurants, all disappearing into white in the distance. Taking shelter by a row of palms, Sawyer huddles into his jacket and checks out the pier furtively as Kate's eyes rove over the promenade.

"This is the Embarcadero," Kate says authoritatively, but he can hear the breathless excitement in her voice, sees it in her flushed cheeks, "Used car dealership should be somewhere down Broadway, straight ahead –"

"Think we did it…" Sawyer breathes, as he finally realizes _no one is coming after them… _"Christ, I think we're home free, Freckles…!"

She looks to him in surprise, like he caught her off guard… and the smile that lights her face is truly raw with pleasure. She leans into him quickly and plants a warm kiss on his cold lips, and he wraps his arms around her tightly, noticing how it's like she was built to fit into his frame. When she pulls back, her cheeks are rosy with the cold, but her eyes are sparkling.

"This is just the beginning," Her words are laced with anticipation, but moreover, she seems excited now – and he suddenly realizes where this change in her nature has come from. Kate is following her instincts. She's taking back control, she's in her element…

_Kate's running_.

Kate watches Sawyer's smile fades a little, and wonders if he truly understands what he is doing in coming with her… he will see a whole different side to her in the coming weeks, months, if they can evade capture long enough. An ugly side perhaps, that will be impossible to keep hidden. How long will it be before he grows tired of the ducking and diving, before her carefully laid plans grow too much for him?

But she doesn't let herself go down those roads of thought. Now is not the time or place – instead, she merely returns his sea green gaze, ruffles her hand softly through his sandy hair. He gives her dimples, and rolls his eyes.

"Let's get us some wheels." He shoots an uneasy glare back at the Oceanic Princess, "And get far away from here as we can."

As Kate and Sawyer vanish into the mist on the Embarcadero, a darkly silhouetted figure watches from the pier.

Ethan turns with a small smile and strides towards a waiting car.

**PLEASE REVIEW ME…..! **

**I'm away now for two weeks, so no more updates for awhile I'm afraid…  but I'd still love to hear from you – and I promise to have a new chapter for you when I get back! **


	32. Snow Cones in Autumn

**Chapter 32**

**Snow cones in Autumn **

_Come into my life, regress into a dream_

_We will hide and build a new reality_

_Draw another picture of the life you could've had_

_Follow your instincts, and choose the other path._

_You should never be afraid, _

_You're protected from trouble and pain,_

_Why is this a crisis in your eyes?_

_How did it come to be, tied to a railroad, _

_No love to set us free, watch our souls fade away_

_And our bodies crumbling…_

_Don't be afraid, _

_I will take the blow for you_

_I have had reoccurring nightmares _

_That I was loved for who I am_

_And missed the opportunity,_

_To be a better man _

_- 'Hoodoo', by Muse. _

* * *

'Remember – if there's no pink slip or ignition key, don't buy it." 

Kate looks up into Sawyer's face and knows he is close to losing his rag. He had been unusually good spirited during the long (cold) walk up the misty Embarcadero, and the talk had flown unusually easily as they recounted tales from the Island, and little experiences that they had there which stuck in their minds. Kate had hesitantly recounted one time, when she had been sitting on the beach and remembering how when she had been making her way to San Francisco on the run, that she had always pictured sitting on the bay, eating a snow cone and looking out over the far great west of the world. On that blistering Island, the snow cone had never tasted so good in her mind.

Here the reality is a cold, autumn day enshrouded with salty low rolling fog from the sea. The sun barely illuminates the clouds, the water is not warm aquamarine, but a rolling slate grey. The Embarcadero is mostly shut, being a Sunday, and there is no snow cone in her hand, no sun on her face. This is not the San Francisco of her dreams, but the cold reality of returning to her life on the run. There is no beauty, here.

But upon hearing her story, Sawyer had grown animated and gripped her cold hand with his warm one. He guided her through the winding, old streets, growing increasingly belligerent to her protests and demands for an explanation – and then, when he emerged from a small drugstore, looking exceeding proud of himself, he presented her with a snow cone. The simplicity of his gesture had touched her somehow, and they had worked their way back to the waterfront to sit with their legs dangling over the dock, eating the crunchy ice even though even though the air was biting and their hands were numb from cold. They looked over the Golden Gate Bridge, and sat in silence.

They didn't need words. They never did. Kate thought then, even if she knew the right words to say to sum up this time, this place, she couldn't say them. Speech destroyed the functions of love – she had always believed it so. She had held out her hand, spoken to a stray kitten who ambled up cautiously to inspect her, but it had glided away into the fog in fear at her voice. She had intended well – but the words were the harm. So they sat in silence, content, and as Kate looked outwards at the bay, then to Sawyer's face, she found a lingering beauty in the world once more.

But now they have been standing outside the ramshackle used car dealership for near twenty minutes debating how much to spend on a set of wheels. Kate wanted to get the best they could afford, as they could be on the road a long while, whilst Sawyer, she is rapidly discovering, is unbelievably tight with his money.

"Match the VID number on the pink slip to the VID number on the metal plate usually mounted on the dash board under the windshield wipers. Match the license plate number. If one or both don't match, don't buy it - the license plate could be stolen or the car could be stolen or _both_ –"

"I _know_ that, Jesus Christ woman, believe it or not I _have_ bought cars before!" Sawyer intercedes with irritation. She is helpless but to raise her eyebrows and immediately wishes she hadn't. His jaw tightens and she knows he is perilously close to losing his temper now, but is unable to cease her overly practical (some might even call _paranoid_) rant --

"You're gonna have to make sure that the back license plate has a current registration, the exhaust doesn't visibly smoke and there's no cracks in the windshield, okay? And double check the indicators and headlights are working, because it'll give the cops the perfect excuse to pull us over --"

"Look, you know so much automobile expert?" He shakes his head, and she notices he is looking paler than usual – the tans the Island's unforgiving sun had beaten over their skins like polished copper are finally fading… the notion brings a fleeting twinge of regret with it before she brushes it away. "Do it yourself." He grits, "Because I'm sure the chances you getting anywhere _near_ the same price for that clapped out piece of trash that I could are _highly_ likely."

"You think because I'm a woman I'm out of my depth here!" Her eyes flash and she is helpless but to rise to his bait, "I could get twice the deal on that car and you know it!"

"Prove it." His eyes sparkle with challenging rivalry and she rolls her eyes with rapidly fraying patience. She refuses to play his games now, it's too dangerous…

"Sawyer, just go get the car okay?"

"What do you think it's worth…?" His eyes crinkle with playful competition as he circles the car sizing it up like it's a target he's about to con, eyes roving over every inch of its body with predatory attention.

"Me not slapping you?" She smiles sweetly. He fakes a deliberately smartass grin, as she sighs, "Look, just don't pay more than three hundred. _And_ --" She catches a flicker of protest on his face, and before he can protest she says firmly, "No _less_ than two seventy. I mean it. Please…I know what I'm doing."

He shakes his head in resigned distaste and pulling his coat tighter around him, she watches him duck under the covered porch and into the small glass fronted building where a few cars are visible under spotlights through the glass, the fog casting them in weird, amorphous halos of light. She shivers, rubbing her arms for heat and shoots looks around the bleak side street as she forces herself to wait patiently for him to return. Cars pass and disappear like transitory shadows into the mist, and her heart longs to feel the ground pass away beneath her feet, a very real urge which brings cramps of longing to her stomach.

Pressing her hands to the flat of her belly, she sighs in a white puff of smoke, then suddenly her heart kicks and she pulls her hands away in horror. She had done such a good job forgetting what is growing inside her, ever stronger day by day, that now she remembers, the thought of a child hits her hard out here, standing alone in the mist, Sawyer's look of distaste still vivid in her mind.

To stop herself falling to the dread which threatens to consume her, she casts her gaze outwards. This end of Broadway is rundown, and as she turns she finds that forty feet up the street, the road ends in a hazy view of the marina. The sight of the boats out on the grey bay reminds her of her father. Boats always do.

_Daddy I'm scared_

And as the memories of burning summers spent out on the lake with him resurface, so does the dull terror of the open water, the way she had kicked and screamed, begged to be led ashore, to safety –

_I can't be out here I'm afraid_

She jerks beside the curb and before she knows what is happening she is standing with her hands planted on her trembling knees, having been violently sick. As she stands, knowing there is no longer any question that the test could have been wrong, she fights the dizziness and leans against the cool bark of the weathered palm... breathing in… out…

"You ready to go or what?"

She spins to see Sawyer standing expectantly on the porch of the dealership, a puzzled expression on his face. How long had he been standing there? How much had he seen?

"Yeah," She breathes curtly, "You get it?"

"I got it," He approaches the car, a black Dodge, and unlocks the door. She moves forth tentatively, amazed that he had swallowed his pride enough to pay for the decent car. He holds the door open for her and smiles up to her with a mischievous (but somehow tired) grin. "Madame's carriage awaits?"

She forces a smile back and ducks into the front. If he'd seen anything, he'd have pulled her up on it, made a smartass remark, so as he eases into the drivers seat besides her, she forces herself to ease up, and enquire,

"You want me to drive?"

"Sweetheart _relax_," He sighs cockily as he slams his door and guns the engine, "You worry too much. I _told_ you, I got it --"

Suddenly the car bucks backwards and Sawyer slams the brakes on, throwing them both forwards with a sharp crack. As Kate shoots him a triumphant _'I told you so'_ look, Sawyer protests angrily, yanking at the gear-stick, "Damn thing's been left in reverse. Reverse! Told you this car was a damn bad idea --"

"_You_ put it in reverse," Kate laughs in disbelief, "I saw you!"

"I did no such thing!" He objects indignantly, eyes wide with wounded pride, "You think I don't know how to _drive_ a damn car now!"

"Okay," Kate stifles her laughter, makes herself straight faced, "So _drive_."

As he pulls out of the lot, he is muttering under his breath then sighs, "So _where_, where do you wanna go great leader? Seeing as you been glued to those damn maps since you bought 'em, don't you think it's high time you filled me in on exactly where the hell it is we're supposed to go?"

"For now, lets just get out of state." Kate sighs, "'Frisco's too populated, makes me anxious… soon as we make it to Nevada we'll hole up someplace quiet, see if we can't figure out a good route." He shoots her a look of suspicion, as to why she's playing her cards so close to her chest, prompting her to retort uneasily, "I got one, but…"

"But…?" He goads, and she sighs,

"But let's face it. We don't have anything to go on but a last name. It's not like we're even certain Garrett's wife is still working. He didn't even know!" Kate catches the small tick of pain cross Sawyer's face upon mention of Garrett, but knows she has to finish, "And he never told us where she was, only that she was head of psychoanalytical research someplace…" As Kate talks, growing rapidly disillusioned, the reality sinks in that she has _no_ _idea_ where she is going, or who she is looking for. She doesn't even know where to start.

"And here's me thinking _you_ were the expert tracker." Sawyer says with a weary smirk.

"She's not a boar Sawyer, she's a person!" Kate flicks through the maps, "It's not like I can follow her tracks in the mud and hey-presto, I'm at her house! She could be _anywhere_ --"

Suddenly she sees his face incredibly tighten as they pull towards the four lane tollbooths on the I80 stretch of interstate out of California… because as the road winds towards the booth, Kate sees a squad car is idling on the gravel verge – and cops are doing routine checks through car windows as the cars pay toll…

Heart diving, adrenaline immediately shooting through his veins, Sawyers grip on the wheel turns bare-knuckle white as he glares steadfastedly through the windshied in unadulterated hatred at the cops, _and the slow moving queue is decreasing -_

"_It's okay,"_ Kate hisses tightly, doing a terrible job of masking her shock, "This block won't be for me. It can't be, right? They think I'm dead remember?"

"Lets think about this a moment _genius,"_ Sawyer's voice drips with sarcasm, "Oh, now I remember! You're NOT!"

"Cops work off of profiles," Kate explains urgently, "They're trained to spot the unusual as well as how to spot individuals fitting a variety of profiles. Someone on the run fits several profiles. We want to "fall out of the net" and slip through the typical police profiles right?"

She digs inside her bag jerkily and to his complete astonishment she rams her empty Starbucks cup into his hand. "A cup of coffee on the dash arouses no suspicions. You're on your way to work, not running from someone."

"How the hell do you come up with this? You think this here _cup's_ gonna be enough to distract from the fact I got an escaped _fugitive_ in my damn car!" He breathes, but her eyes are flickering up the queue – _six cars left now –_

"Don't studiously avoid catching the cop's eye." Sawyer can barely believe his ears. It's like Kate's gone into full fugitive lockdown and is spewing out cold orders from dubious experience with army like efficiency, "Lean back in your seat, left arm on the window sill, right on the steering wheel at the 6:00 O'Clock position. Take a sip of your coffee –"

"I don't _have_ any damn coffee!" He hisses in frustration,

"The main thing is to try to act like you're a mindless commuter getting from point A to point B with the rest of the lemmings. You're _not_ frightened that you'll get stopped." Her cornered gaze has taken on a haunted, glazed look he's never seen before and it rams the hairs on his arms up high and sprinkles them with gooseflesh. Because the fire has died from her eyes. She looks _dead_ as she continues drilling in a fiercely defensive voice, "Cops can _smell_ your anxiety and fear… you have to adopt a carefree attitude and outward composure, not be thinking about the friends and family you've left behind. You're not anxious of what will happen when you get caught. Your heart isn't racing in your chest, you're not thinking about how much you could lose, how much is on the line, _you're dead to it –"_ Her eyes meet his, and with a terrible lurch, he realises Kate isn't here anymore. He honest to God doesn't know this woman besides him, as she finishes in a haunted whisper, _"Stone… cold_. To survive, that's the way it has to be."

The utter finality of her words strikes him like she has reached deep inside and clenched his beat-up old heart with her own two hands. The way she is looking up at him, so lost and unbelievably _scarred_ –

His eyes flash to the toll booth and there's _four_ _cars_ _left_, _Jesus Christ –_

Kate has that haunted distance in her eyes as she gazes outwards, with that hunted look he can't stand and could never hope of erasing. Knowing he could never find words enough to heal her, he instead encircles her small cold hand with his large one, and she distractedly meets his gaze…

"It'll be _okay_." Struggling, Sawyer hisses, _"I promise, alright…?"_

Her eyes seem to focus, gain strength and his chest fills with triumph – before his eyes pass from Kate back to the road and widen in horror.

_The cops are performing stop checks. _

Instinctively shucking out of his coat, he shoots a look of determination to Kate as the queue of cars in front of them diminishes and the cops move closer. Her face has hardened impossibly and he knows she has seen this sudden change in their fortunes too. He shoves his jacket at her,

"Get down on the floor. Under this – _hurry_ –"

Eyes burning with hunted anxiety Kate grabs the coat – "Don't try and outrun them, it's too dangerous – if they stop you, you have to _cover_ –"

"Get _down!"_ He hisses as the final car before them pulls away through the toll gates and a bored looking beat cop approaches boredly. Kate jams herself down before the front passenger chair as he helps cover her fully with his coat – and pulls up to the gate. The blonde officer gestures at him to wind his window down, and as he does so, the window jerks up and down spasmodically. He finally gets it down, as the female cop approaches with a sceptical look.

"New car?" Her eyes roam over the Dodge's ticking body carefully.

"No," Sawyer smiles, making a great show of getting change out his wallet, "Busted car – riding the bitch up to my cousin's in Reno to get her fixed up."

The cop smiles half-heartedly and turns her piercing gaze on him. "Cold day, huh?"

"Whooo-wee ma'am, you're darn tooting it is."

"Why aren't you wearing a coat?" Her brow furrows and with an unsettling feeling he realizes he's sitting there in a thin tee shirt. Bracing himself, he goes on one of his best charm offensives.

"Well I'm a hot guy baby, what can I say? If you're feelin' the chill, you know I'd warm you right up…"

The blonde rolls her eyes with a time-worn air of a girl whose heard this one too many times before. He fleetingly notices how the uniform hugs her curves, wonders with a pang what Ana-Lucia would have looked like in one of these numbers. But instead of gratifying him with an answer, the cop flashes her torchlight through the fog and inside the car routinely. Sawyer's chest tightens and struggles to keep his cool air of indifference, when --

"You're travelling with two backpacks?"

His smile freezes on his face, and as he turns to the passenger seat, his stomach clenches.

_Kate's backpack is tucked by the front seat._

A horn blares behind, and jerks him back from that life-draining trance. The cop is waving back to the waiting queue to be patient, as he plasters back on his most conscientious smile.

"I'm a heavy traveller. What's with the twenty question sugar-lips?"

Obviously exhausted with his attitude, the cop shakes her head stepping back. "Nothing for you to worry about. We're checking the area for two escaped persons whom we require in custody."

Suddenly the familiar flicker of electricity begins to throb through Sawyer's mind, and he has a very, _very_ bad feeling about all this…

"Escaped persons as in fugitives…?"

"As in _that's confidential."_ Her eyes seem to pierce his in a way he doesn't like. He suddenly has to stop his foot from jerking down onto the accelerator and breaking through the damn toll barrier. Because he has the horrible, swirling feeling of dread that this isn't really a cop at all…

"As in… _specimens…?"_ He breathes, and the croak which he hears is not his voice.

A small smile only forms over the cops face… and he knows instinctively he is right. He knows, _he knows it,_ he can fucking _feel_ it –

Smiling that small, oh-so knowing smile, the cop backs away from the car, slapping it's girth with her hand. "Carry on. Have a nice day now!"

Numbly throwing a handful of change at the bucket Sawyer's foot jams down on the gas before the barrier is barely lifted, narrowly missing smashing it to pieces. With a squeal of tires, the car shoots down the slip road and out onto the interstate with liquid lightning speed.

* * *

"Stay down." Sawyer hisses shakily, forcing himself to loosen his death grip on the steering wheel. He runs an unsteady hand over his sweating face, eyes darting about in their struggle for understanding… and after a couple of minutes have passed, and he is certain they are not being followed, Sawyer finally allows himself to ease down. But that sickening electricity is thrumming through his mind, the voices are whispering again, as he mutters through a thick throat, _"Okay. I think we're good."_

Kate throws the coat up indignantly and he can see her cheeks are flushed red. "You were flirting with her!" Kate says with a disbelieving look.

Sawyer damn near has a cardiac. "I was _protecting_ you!"

"You couldn't have protected me with you're head not your pants! _You're unbelievable --!"_

"_That's_ what you wanna be shouting at me for right now?" Sawyer barks, suddenly fighting off fits of hysterical laughter, _"Did you even hear who in hell that bitch was!"_

Kate guesses her momentary silence is all the answer he needs, and she watches him rake a hand through his hair anxiously, checking the rear view for the hundredth time.

"First I thought she was on the level," His voice is ragged, hoarse, "Flagging cars on some kinda routine deal or something, everything was going _fine_, I had it covered, I _had_ it. I thought she was a cop Kate. Damnit she had the uniform, the car, back-up, _everything_ – it couldn't be more obvious if she had the damn tee shirt to boot! But she's one of them Kate, I swear, I know it _I felt it –"_

"One of them!" Kate leans forth against the rushing backdrop of the busy interstate, the motion of the car making her feel incredibly sick, "Sawyer slow down – _hey!"_

She rests her hand on his until he grudgingly eases down on the speed. Then she ventures anxiously, "One of _who?"_

Sawyer glares through the windshield as a light mist of drizzle obscures the world outside, cocooning them inside in the dull daylight. And she notices again that dark circles shadow Sawyer's eyes…

"One of them," Sawyer insists softly, _"Dharma."_

The stunned silence that fills the cramped car is almost more than Sawyer can bear, and now he realizes with almost bitter irony that the shoe is on the other lousy foot now – he had rejected Kate when she had asked him to believe her, when she had come to him half out of her mind with fear over seeing Ana-Lucia. And now he needs her to believe _him_, and his damn equally ludicrous theories –

"I can't believe she was a real cop Sawyer." Kate breathes breathlessly, rejecting the notion as he'd known she would, "Not if you really believe Dharma are looking for us both – it's _Dharma_ that want us, not the cops, are you out of your mind!"

"Open your _eyes_ Kate --" Sawyer cries savagely, _"Think about it_ – Dharma ain't some backwater group, these guys are big enchiladas! Ain't many folk who can build an entire research facility beneath the entire _island_ they use as a damn laboratory okay? So we _know_ they got money. So whose to say they don't have the contacts? Huh? You don't get to being that powerful without being able to pull strings. Without being able to influence, corrupt people…" He shoots a weighted look to her from the road, "…and we both know that's what they're best at."

She returns his look with an utterly unreadable expression. He has no idea if anything he has just said has swayed her in the slightest. As the silence draws from uncomfortable right through to excruciating, she finally says softly,

"How deep does this go? If they've got the cops on side Sawyer, we're in this a hell of a lot deeper than we thought. A single APB out on my head, maybe we could run, hide… but if the entire police force across the states is on our tail, we're done for." Her voice takes on a hopeless not of disbelief, "We can't run from that amount of opposition, we _can't -_ these days nobody can. Believe it. Even if we run at night and hole up during the day, we can't outrun radios or helicopters and the police aren't just going to go _away_ –"

"I know a place we can go."

She looks to him deeply, wondering how in hell he could come up with anything that could possibly begin to form a solution to their problems. He seems to be in some kind of pain. He drives one handed, with his elbow is propped on the windowsill of the fogged up car, and he is kneading his temple with his brow knitted tight.

"We'll go to Tennessee." He spits the word _Tennessee _like it tastes bad, and this seems to be very hard for him to say, "It's not that far, shouldn't take us more than a week to get there if you're so set on driving at night."

"Why Tennessee?" She asks, almost dreading the response.

"I know somewhere we can hole up. It'll be deserted. If it's still standing, that is… but it's in the middle of nowhere, could be perfect for us." But his tone makes it obvious he truly believes it is anything but perfect, "I can access my accounts from there, clear them to get enough money –"

She knows whatever is waiting for them far on the eastern horizon is something Sawyer is dreading to face. But for some reason, he has offered it, and is looking like one of their only options. It grates against her natural instincts not to be calling the shots in a situation like this, but even in her frenzied state, she is aware that they may simply not have anymore options right now…

"You don't sound so sure." She says softly, and for a moment, he is thrown.

"What?" He pulls a cigarette out and drags the window down. The blast of air is cold and takes Kate's breath away a little.

"Wherever it is you want to go," She breathes softly, "You don't sound so sure it's perfect, Sawyer…"

He sighs, and as she looks to him, she sees he isn't just looking tired, or stressed – he looks pale, and visibly strained. As he drags on the cigarette, she sees he is also sweating profusely…

"It's where I grew up." He grits, eyes fixed on the long road ahead, "And you're right. It _ain't_ perfect. It ain't even close…" His eyes grow faraway and stormy with dread, "It's hell on earth. But it's all we got."

She knows with sudden certainty that he is taking her back to the scene of his destruction, the place where his life spun off the tracks and his world was shattered forever. A place of innocence lost and where nightmares were formed…

_Sawyer is taking her home. _

* * *

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	33. The Proposition

**Chapter 33**

**The Proposition**

Sunsets fall on drowning shores as angry clouds glower on the horizon. The waves crash into frothing surf which chases sand along the silver shoreline, creating dancing, ever shifting patterns of brilliance in their wake… before being eradicated upon impact with a pair of black, military issue boots.

"Forgive me for intruding, Sir – but I bring news from the hunters."

Eyes flickering from his deepest thoughts, Henry turns slowly to look upon Agent Blue, who approaches along the dark beach. His white lab-coat seems to glow as it whips about him in the tropical wind as he checks through a clipboard of printouts. "The specimens were sighted at a toll booth by one of our operatives, leaving the San Francisco Bay area, heading out towards Nevada."

"Nevada…?" Henry mulls.

"Our guess is they're heading for Reno. Somewhere they can disappear in the crowds, go to ground. They'll be shaken up. I think the male – this _James_ _Ford_ – recognized the operative as a hunter…"

Henry turns. His mask, always so carefully controlled, now slips ever so slightly – and for a moment, there is a flicker of demented _rage_. "Your operatives were ordered to keep their distance until I gave the order, Blue. I did not give the order, did I?"

The hardened set of Agent Blue's face is diminished by his oriental eyes which glitter palest blue in the half-light, uncertain with anxiety… his Adams apple bobs nervously, "No, Sir."

Henry looks into him murderously… then perhaps thinks better of harming him. Because he simply turns back outwards to the black sea, and casts his gaze outwards once more. "It's of no matter," He says in a distant tone. "There is nowhere that they can run. We have operatives in any place they could possibly surface. It is only a matter of time."

"Do you remember the plan, Blue?" He continues softly, with that terrifying logic, "We will not challenge them outright. Not yet. We need them returned to us in physically perfect condition, after all..." His gaze grows impossibly cold. "But mentally… they are forging a bond. It's most worrying… and it must be broken."

Agent Blue looks up, "They have passed all our tests. They are an ideal pair. And even though they resist the machines reading their minds fully, we've gotten enough from the female – Katherine Austen – to determine that she is with child." Agent Blue's voice usual monotone takes on a breathless hope, "It is as we hoped."

Henry turns… and his eyes slowly heat with incredible fire. "Then our dear Miss Austen has finally become of importance…! Mr Ford's importance to the Dharma project is unquestionable, as we well know… but until now, I have somewhat questioned the woman's worth to our great work, here."

He approaches Agent Blue with renewed fire and grips his arms tightly, crazed blue eyes gleaming opaque in the starlight, "Do you understand the importance of our task now Blue? What we have to do?"

Agent Blue returns Henry's gaze nodding his head briskly, as Henry breathes, "It is more important than ever that we keep track of them. Break their bond. Ultimately, it is the bond they share that could destroy us. It is _dangerous_ and could jeopardize everything we've worked so long for –"

"I've a plan," And Agent Blue smiles that reptilian leer…

* * *

The road stretches out long, hard and unforgiving before the battered dodge as their first night draws in on the road. The windshield wipers drag back and forth, the radiator thrums, the radio chatters irrelevantly. As the shadows had lengthened, the dodge had grown cold, and after thumping the dash a couple of times and getting increasingly pissed that he couldn't work the damn radiator Kate had flicked a switch to be greeted with a gush of warm air. Damn her. She had arched her eyebrows in a typically exasperated way and he only cursed under his breath. 

After their strained conversation in which Sawyer had told Kate where he was planning on taking her, he had dreaded she would push him for more details, details he was certain he would be hard pushed to give her. Knowing her infuriating need for control over every aspect of this journey, from how they left the cabin down to every detail of buying the car, he had steeled himself for her twenty questions on their new destination… only to be completely blindsided by her silence. He gave up trying to predict Kate long ago, but she still manages to surprise him by doing damn near nothing at all. Because he finds it unbelievable that after her obsessive compulsions over their journey that she would be able to resign such a massive portion of the decision making to him without having so much as a finger in the pie herself. It makes him uneasy that she didn't put up so much as a fight, or that if this goes wrong, the blame will rest squarely at his door…

But their choices have run out - Tennessee's the only game in town. If they are to stand any chance at all against the unbelievable odds, they are going to need money. And he _has_ money. A lot of it… but whether he can get his hands on the damn stuff is another matter.

They have not spoken in hours now. He has always been at ease in the silences they share, but with the weight of the past hours revelations hanging heavy in the air, it's uncomfortable. But he can't bring himself to break it.

_Why don't you tell her the truth Jimmy? _The voices whisper their sly poison, _Tell Kate __that the very place you are heading is the worst place in the world. Why are you really heading back to Hell? What could you possibly gain? What aren't you telling her?_

How can he even begin to describe the mindless, inhuman fear which rises to greet him on the very thought of returning to the place where his very deepest seated fears stem from like a blackened vein, the setting of his darkest nightmares?

_There are limits to what the human soul can endure, and yours is already blackened to the core. Don't destroy yourself by going back there._

Will he still be able to find it? Lord, he hasn't even set foot back in Tennessee, let alone even _seen_ his old home since he was six…

_You're insane, little Jimmy Ford, if you think you could ever grow up enough to be able to face seeing the ruins. The blackened carcass of your childhood. _

He knows Shaconage Ranch will almost certainly be gone. _Shaconage. _Even the name chills him. Maybe it will have been bulldozed to be replaced with holiday homes or a damn shopping mall. Either that, or it will have new occupants, or maybe, just maybe there will be nothing there at all… maybe the Smokies will have reclaimed the decaying old Cherokee ranch with the rolling fields that had long surrounded it. Who knows? Hell, it has been over thirty years…

_But it'll never be gone, will it? They could bulldoze the wreckage and build their new-fangled condos, but it would all be a whitewash, in the end. Because you're not afraid of seeing it. At the end of the day, it is scraps of timber and wood. Everything that had made it a home left those eaves when your mother died. But the primal fear comes from the unknown, doesn't it? And the memories which will be waiting for you when you get there…_

So, deep inside, he has a feeling.

It gnaws away at him, at the back of his mind. Because to his deepest dread, he doesn't think any of those things have happened. It could never be that easy. He almost wishes he could go back, maybe walk into an air conditioned mall, stand outside a Barnes and Noble amidst bustling crowds with a burrito in his hand and look to the floor, down to where only he knows a hallway had once stood with crayon marks on the walls and blood rapidly staining the scuffed wooden floor mahogany.

_That place branded you forever. You'll never have the luxury of forgetting what happened there. It's like dropping that lit match on your pa's chest Jimmy – just because the fire burned him all away, doesn't mean he's gone. He haunts you. It all does. _

He wishes he could go back and see the whole place renovated, like a battered slate wiped clean. Maybe it will be. There's every chance it could. Maybe instead of the dirt track which had wound endlessly through ancient birch forests and age-old prairie towards the old Ford ranch, there will now be a real street. A _paved_ one. This street will pass new houses, clapboard houses, maybe there will be _people_ out there now, hanging their lousy washing in the wind, letting their bratty kids play on their push bikes on their drives, claiming what was once his for theirs.

But he knows there will be no people lining freshly gritted streets. It is a foolish man who would build a home so far from civilization and bordering so close to the Great Smokies. Sawyer remembers as a child, that the Ford's closest neighbours had been a pack of testy black mountain bears who camped out in the far rear of their garden, and a herd of wild horses who would ride down from the mountains every fall and stay through the winter, sheltered by the forest. The closest humans had been maybe an hour away, the closest amenities a whole days drive…

Even as a perpetually inquisitive six year old, Sawyer remembers the loneliness. The total, all encompassing isolation of that place. There had been no other kids around to create havoc with, his father was always away on business, and his mother spent her days out on the ranch with the horses… so he used to play a game.

He took it deadly seriously. He would hitch his bed sheets over two chairs to create a den, collect a stash of food, comics -- and go to ground. Inside that ever-enchanting bed sheet den, little James would imagine it was the end of the world, and he was the sole remaining survivor.

The causes varied. Mutant sewer monsters, aliens, a toxic gas leak which turned the world into zombies (that was his favourite, because he got to _kill_ _zombies_ _too_) -- they were all plausible. It was only when the air supply ran out that he would die (or his mom called him for tea, whichever came first) that he would emerge…

And even at such a young age, having no concept of distance or time, James had found it _still_ felt like he was trapped there, even when he quit playing games. Sometimes it seemed there really, truly was no one else left in the world.

The Ford ranch is as isolated as the farthest reaches of the galaxy… and as the autumn breeze whistles ever colder through the crack in the car window, ushering in what promises to be a hard winter, Sawyer knows if they can reach it, they will be safe for a short while until they figure out what to do. They will possibly get snowed in, but he knows it is the only way… and he will finally have to try and be the man he always feared he could never be, and ride out the winter in Hell.

They have been driving along highway 120 through the glacier-scarred granite world of the Sierra Nevada for what seems a lifetime. Every now and again, the long, empty highway is flanked by ancient forests, starlit lakes, and alpine meadows which fleet past the windows in unsubstantial blurs. On the moonlit horizon, the jagged mountain ranges reach for the stratosphere, like great stone giants frozen in time.

That's what it feels like, on this road. The world is rushing past outside yet inside the dodge, it's like time has slowed right down. Tennessee looms far in the east, still blessedly far enough away to only plague his thoughts, not exert the stomach cramps of anxiety he knows will surely come…

The streetlights flurry past with spellbinding regularity… and the steady whine of the heater grows into a soothing drone, persuading Sawyer's tired bones to feel heavy with the need for sleep. His eyelids grow heavy…

He jerks himself awake in a cold sweat, realizing he was perilously close to falling asleep at the wheel. He could kick himself. That's just what they needed, on top of everything else – a car wreck on a dead highway would finish things off _beautifully_. As the dodge kicks down onto the dusty verge, he guides it down the gentle slope, and along a tree lined hillside. Satisfied they are far enough from any prying eyes on the road, he kills the engine finally, and he sinks back into his seat. After the rush of the road, heating, and white noise of the radio, the silence which creeps in upon the world rings in his ears, and suddenly seems obscenely loud. Just the soft tick/groan of the engine cooling down, and his breath…

And hers.

He turns to see Kate illuminated in dappled moonlight. He has no idea how long she has been asleep for, and not merely silent - he had been so caught up in himself he had forgotten she was even in the _car_ with him…

And as he sits in the car, its mass groaning indignantly beneath him, he has a thought. Maybe Kate had known it wasn't that he didn't _want_ to talk about where they were going. Maybe she had known that he physically _couldn't_… not tonight. It had taken a great deal out of him even bringing it up… so maybe she'd known the damage it would have done to press him on it. He doesn't know how in hell she could have known all that, but somehow, he thinks she might have done. Before he gets out of the dodge, he brushes a kiss over her smooth forehead in profound gratitude for her blessed silence.

Sawyer leaves Kate asleep in the car to stretch his legs, hoping to wake the hell up and ease his fitful mind, wear himself out. They had crossed into Yosemite National Park when the sun had started to set, and the road had lead them through a world of different landscaped – from lush primeval forests, past glacial lakes, rushing rivers, to ice fields, then flower filled alpine meadows. And now, he guesses they're a good twenty miles in. At least they're making good time…

Keeping one eye on the car and one ear listening out for any approaching cars or threats, Sawyer makes his way restlessly down to the babbling rivers edge. The air is incredibly clean and sharp here, and as he passes through a grove of giant sequoias, he strips and dives into the fresh river in a smooth motion. The burst of freezing water is the shock he needs to wake up, and he breaks the surface of the water, shivering in the cold, then --

"God, you take some keeping up with."

Sawyer slows his strokes through the dark water, but does not stop. He's had a feeling all day that Shannon was growing closer to reappearing to him, but he has been so pre-occupied that he hasn't fully realized. He could never put into words how he knew she was coming – the awareness just seemed to slowly dawn on him, seeping through his mind and clouding his thoughts with that faint, yet all too familiar electric haze which hints of his implant revving up…

"Lord, you don't know when to quit do you?" He sighs.

Shannon rolls her eyes back, sitting on a nearby outcrop of rocks across the babbling rock stream. "You wanna thank your lucky stars I _am_ here. Do you even have any idea what you're doing Sawyer?"

"I'm doing just fine. And just so you know? The day I take advice from a walking talking honest to goodness corpse is the day hell freezes over." He takes vindictive pleasure in the wince of hurt that flickers across her face. He sighs with resignation, shaking the water from him and wading out of the rocky river, "Told you before, Sticks. Your conditions mighty sad, but you're wasting your _time -"_

"I need to find Boone." She says in a choked voice, and Lord, she's starting to sound like a broken record, "You have no idea what it's like here, I _need_ him with me –"

"If you're trying to play to my soft headed side, don't bother sweetheart. I don't have one." Sawyer drags his shirt back on, growing rapidly bored of this conversation.

"You have to help me _find_ him –"

"I don't gotta help you find nobody." He starts away. She can just magic her own damn way back to wherever the hell she came from. He'll be damned if she's getting in the same car as him and Kate.

"You're such a pig. And you know what? You're a brainless one at that."

He laughs out loud as he strides away from her, not even gratifying that with an answer. If that's the best she can do, she's seriously gotta up her game.

"Because you're not even getting the _possibilities_ Sawyer –" He can hear her voice following him, but there is only one set of footsteps. _His_. It makes him feel crazy and she's still _going_ -- "You're not seeing what's going on here, what I could give you in _return_ –"

He stops in his tracks, curiosity piqued. The prospect of getting something in return for enduring all her whining is too good to pass up. Slowly he turns, studies her. Standing here in freezing Yosemite Valley in a mini skirt and stilettos with a hole as big as his fist through her stomach, he wishes he could feel pity for her. But he doesn't. She is merely an annoyance, and he'll never see her as anything more. "Like you could give me anything I'd want."

"I could," Shannon's eyes blaze and suddenly he doesn't like the way this is going. There is some kind of self satisfied intent on her face which gets to him, like she's about to deal him a mortal blow, "I could give you the one thing you want in the world."

"Get over yourself," Sawyer bites curtly, eyes trailing up her perpetually mud caked legs, "Maybe when my hand didn't go straight through you I'd a been _tempted_, but –"

"Not _me."_ Shannon retorts scathingly, advancing with deathly pale eyes blazing… "You find Boone for me, and I'll bring you the only person who ever gave a shit about you _James." _

_James. _Upon hearing that name, he loses his cool. Just by uttering that simple fucking _word_, she has pulled the rug from beneath him in a way he had never expected. He hates her for it suddenly with a hard, awful passion. _"How do you know my –"_

Her eyes glitter with a tough, cold fire. "Limbo's a big, empty place. So when you meet people, you get to talking."

"You bitch…" He grits, "Leave me alone. Get the hell out of my head _and leave me ALONE –" _

"You know who I'm talking about don't you?" That self satisfied grin on her face infuriates him, "Who called you Jimmy, Sawyer? How in these worlds could I know that?"

He only stares at her in hatred, in fear, and in uncontrollably blind hope…

"You help me find Boone," Shannon finishes, _"And I'll help you find your mother."_

* * *

Suddenly resurfacing from his printouts and pointing at a line of stars and half words, Agent Blue is emphatic as his plan takes shape, "It would appear they're returning someplace very dear to our Mr Ford. I don't have enough to go on to be able to send out operatives to them… but we have one operative who they can't hide from." 

Henry meets Agent Blue's eyes, excitement barely concealed. "Then its true? He made it back…?"

"Ethan will find them." Agent Blue smiles, "It would appear Mr Ford is returning somewhere he fears greatly… and I'm sure Ethan will have the time of his after-life drawing on the demons there, and exacting sweet revenge on the ones who were a part of killing him."

Henry looks over James Ford's print outs, infuriated by all the stars… "Break him," He growls, "Break him good. Whatever way you can…"

"By whatever means necessary?" Agent Blue breathes, as though to make certain… a look passes between the two men, and the air is suddenly heavy with menace…

"By whatever means necessary." Henry echoes. "When he reaches his destination, it is time to really see what your implants can do. You know the drill. Start the procedure for his mindlock."

Agent Blue looks up sharply. He had not been expecting to hear this, not _yet_ –

"You think he's strong enough to handle a mindlock?" Agent Blue's brow furrows in concern, "Sir, I know he appears to _think_ he is strong enough to face his demons, but we've never had anyone break _out_ of a mindlock." Agent Blue murmurs uncertainly, the ocean breeze ruffling his hair from his brow, as he continues nervously,

"You understand what a mindlock does to the human body Sir? It paralyses the nerve endings in the cerebral cortex which the implant has breached, and blocks any outside stimulus from affecting the specimen. In essence, we will force him into a state of coma…"

Henrys eyes probe him, and Agent Blue finishes in a rush, "But it also accentuates the brain activity within the temporal lobe, forcing the victim to remain in stasis, where they are made to relive their most traumatic memories..."

Henry only takes this in… then turns back out to the ocean, untouched by the Agent's reasoning. Possibly seeing the destruction of one of his most promising specimens on the horizon, Agent Blue is understandably alarmed. He tries one last time,

"Everybody who we tested it on was killed… Sir, no one has been strong enough to handle it before. Why do you think he can do this?"

Agent Blue is fixated on Henry Gale's back, waiting on an answer, praying the Sergeant will see sense… But Henry has regressed into his trance-like vigil at the waters edge again, simply staring out into the dark night, waiting. Waiting for what, Agent Blue doesn't know. Turning to leave, uncertainty lining the usually emotionless Agent's face, Henry calls after him,

"If Mr Ford is truly the one that the Dharma project hinges on, he will break out of the mindlock. Besides…" Henry smiles a haunted, ghostly leer… "It will test the strength of the bond our specimens share. It is perfect…"

And Henry's shark-like gaze finally rests on Agent Blue with enough malice to send chills up the Agent's spine, _"Do it."_

* * *

Sawyers head burns nastily, where he knows the implant used to be. As he jerkily storms up the rocky bank towards the dodge, the world is a blur, a fucked up, faraway mess. His head is fogged and his throat stings. And he's sweating like a damn trooper even though its minus _degrees_ out here… he hasn't been feeling right since the last morning on the ship. But this isn't sickness as such… not now. It feels like his bones are setting rigid, his stomach is churning, and his head… his head feels like its being clamped in a _vice_. That electricity is thrumming through him hard, so hard he shakes uncontrollably with its _force_ – 

She's lying. Stupid bitch is desperate, and a stupid _desperate_ bitch is the worst kind. Because she would say _anything_ to make him help her find her lousy brother. And he isn't going to fall for it. He's already standing in the middle of Yosemite talking to ghosts about people who had flown from this mortal coil years ago, he could well do without buying into the bullshit too.

But maybe he is trying to cling onto some fragile sense of normality that no longer exists. The world around him has changed by impossible, staggering degrees… and no'one else understands. He watches the people pass in their cars, cross streets, and knows they have no idea what is really going on here, what poisonous company has infiltrated to the heart of the very institutions that have been set up to protect them. The cops are in on it, and who knows if it even stops there? So when everything is thrown so heftily off kilter, is it really insanity to believe the promises of a ghost…?

Seeing Shannon, and knowing somehow that he will see her again has made him wonder… if she is still kicking about this mortal coil, haunting the world and unable to pass over, he wonders… could his mother really still be here too?

Maybe Shannon could not move on because she died in such a violent manner… maybe she has unfinished business, ain't that the whole _point_ of being a damn ghost? And if that is the case, surely there is every chance that his mother is still trapped between this world and the next, waiting for him to return and end her unfinished business…

Kate is sitting on the bonnet of the dodge as he returns. She watches his approach with unspoken question in her eyes, and as he slows to a stop, he rests his hands on the ticking bonnet either sides of her legs. Locks his arms tight, so tight the cords stand out… but the trembling is coming from somewhere deep inside, somewhere he _can't_ lock off tight.

She holds him wordlessly, slowly bringing her hands up and down his terse arms and back, trying to instil some heat back into him. And finally, he knows the subject is going to be broached. She has granted him only a fleeting reprieve from talking about where they are going… he should have known that sooner or later, she would need answers.

Kate is talking, and he forces himself to tune in to what she is saying.

"I trust you okay, but…" She bites her lip a moment, reconsidering, but then forcing herself to finish, "Sawyer, how do you know where we're going is any safer than anywhere else…?"

He tries to lock his mind into gear. _Focus. _She's talking business. But the trembles are breaking inside his defences,

_Your mother is DEAD James dead and gone and if you believe that stupid blonde you're even more deluded than she is_

"If Dharma have the cops on side no… no city or town is safe." Jesus, the shivers are wracking his breath, making it impossible to speak -- he takes a deep breath, but to his fury he can't get a _handle_ on himself –

"All it takes is one over-curious cop to phone in for a profile check and we've had it." Kate's eyes search his worriedly, and he mutters,

"Well then the country's safer ain't it, and the more barren and less people around the better –"

"Country folk have a nasty habit of registering new faces," Kate says uncertainly, "What if they get nosy --?"

"There won't be no folk out there…" Sawyer mutters, "There never was."

She watches him a long moment, eyes roving over him. She has no idea what has happened to him in the hour or so she had been asleep, but he looks bleached, like he has seen something awful… she internally berates herself for falling asleep like that. She knew he had been tearing himself up about where they were heading, she should've stayed awake with him…

"Tennessee's a hell of a long way, Sawyer…" She says deliberately, giving him once last chance of backing out and just forgetting the whole idea, "Sierra Nevada's got miles of nothing we could get lost in. Maybe we'd be better off holing up somewhere and seeing if we can't trace Garrett's wife from here?"

She sees something in him respond to her veiled offer, and he returns her look, trying hard to get a grip on whatever he is struggling so hard with…

"And how exactly are you planning on tracing our dear Aunt Sally?" He sighs challengingly, "Putting an ad out in the paper? Going door to door salesman style? In case you forgot, we didn't even catch what _state_ this gal's holed up in. We're not gonna find her easy. And I get the nasty notion this here's a lady don't _wanna_ be found…" He suddenly sneezes. Hard. Kate studies him closely, sees he is sweating heavily, and has a very bad feeling about this…

_mindlock_

"So what do you suggest?" Kate sighs tiredly, trying not to show her irritation, "Travelling two thousand miles and hoping she'll be in Tennessee to greet us off the road?"

"I know people," Sawyer mutters, "People who could stand a chance finding her."

* * *

The sun is staining the cold autumn sky a deep mahogany, as they leave the car in the woods and hike out towards White Wolf lodge to hide out for the night. At this time of year, the campsite is deserted and they have no trouble breaking into a cabin. 

All the while, Kate keeps an eye on Sawyer. He is not right at all. As they hike through the sequoia forests, she watches his stride, sees how stiffly he is moving. And when he thinks she isn't looking, she sees him kneading his temples. She wonders with a sinking feeling if he is coming down with something, and if he would even tell her if he was.

The wooden cabin is small, and the wind comes right in through the eaves, being a summer cabin as it is. They unpack their sparse goods in their backpacks and luckily find that there is still enough gas in the bottle to light the hob. They heat a tin of beans, and sit together on the cramped single bunk, huddled together for warmth.

As they eat, Kate's arm rests against Sawyers chest, and she can feel his breath rasping through his lungs. The notion that he could be coming down with something begins to gain weight in her mind…

"Sawyer…?" She asks softly when they lie down later on. The single bunk is so small that they are forced into close proximity, which neither of them mind. The heat is welcome in the cold autumn night…

"_Sawyer,"_ She repeats, and he comes out of his daydream, twirls her hair around his fingers, and gives her his attention. "Are you okay?"

He nods indignantly, like she has insulted him by even suggesting he could be weak enough to get sick.

But in truth, he isn't okay. He isn't even close.

His mind is on overdrive. He's never felt anything like it.

He has an ulterior motive for going to Tennessee. He hasn't been straight with Kate. Because he has a terrible feeling that their time is running out, that there is some giant net closing in on them, inch by inch… he no longer believes they can run from Dharma. Kate will delude herself he's sure, but he knows the truth. Sure, they could hide, but in the end, he knows it is only a matter of time before they are apprehended…

And he has a terrible feeling that it is crucial for him to face these demons before he is captured, before Dharma finally closes in again.

_There are limits to what the human soul can endure _

Because maybe the voices are wrong. Maybe they're scared of him confronting his demons because that's what they thrive on, why they have such unnatural strength over him.

_Yours is already blackened to the core_

They feed off his hatred…

_Don't destroy yourself by going back there_

And he _needs_ Kate with him to confront his demons. He remembers being back on the island, how he had believed with all his heart that Garrett had been his chance to chance, and Kate had been the reason. He may have missed his chance, but the reason had stuck with him…

Sawyer is not the kind of man to believe any girl could ever make him a better man. He'd had plenty of them… but then again, not girls _exactly_ like Kate.

Maybe he can face his ghosts when he is with her. And she has given him so much, in her ways… he owes it to her to try and lay his demons to rest, get his head straight so he can get them out of this mess…

And her jade green eyes are peering up at him through those feathery dark lashes, waiting on an answer…

"Course I am." He lies softly, "Never better."

And as Kate plants a lingering kiss on his lips, he tries to ignore the dull fire in his joints, the way his skin seems to burn, and concentrates on running his hands through her hair, pulling her shirt off. And all the while, in his head a single word is repeating. He doesn't understand it, but the voices whisper it anyway, and its cadences roll endlessly through the chambers of his mind, slowing his heart and freezing his soul…

_Mindlock, mindlock, MINDLOCK…_

* * *

**PLEASE REVIEW! Oh, Sawyer's in for a rough ride...! If anyone has any questions (I know this is a chapter crammed full of revelations!) shout them out and I'll answer in my next post. Hope you liked the chapter! xx**


	34. Shaconage

**Chapter 34**

**Shaconage**

High in the dirty pale sky, a golden eagle takes flight against the white. Elevated high above the vastness it soars then freefalls on the wind, its great wings outstretched wide… and Kate's eyes trace its journey across the opalescent clouds. For a moment she imagines what it must be like to take a running jump and just swoop up into the air, feel the wind rush against her cheeks and the ground rush away beneath her into unimportance. She feels it rush through her, the way the weight of the world would fall away with the ground far beneath her, leaving her liberated and flying free of the earth which binds her here, in this ever waking nightmare…

"Shut that damn door…!" A crabby voice hollers from inside, shattering her illusion. Because that's all freedom will ever be for her, she realizes with a regretful twinge… ever the unachievable illusion.

Drawing inside her coat, she stands unwillingly on the creaking porch of the summer cabin and takes one last look at the eagle swiftly bearing east for the pale violet horizon, leaving her behind forever. And she knows it's stupid, and it's weak and cowardly, but suddenly she would have given anything to have taken flight with it.

Stepping back inside the shadowy cabin, she rubs the last remains of sleep from her eyes and appraises Sawyer critically. He is curled away from her beneath a mound of blankets and their combined coats. She had barely slept at all, because he had been so restless last night. He had called out in his sleep a couple of times in a voice which had badly shaken her, a low mournful wail which was so unfamiliar to her she had thought at first they had an intruder. But there was no intruder, just Sawyer wrestling with something awful in his sleep, and she could not help him there.

Now, as dawns violet light begins to seep through the log walls, she tries to convince herself that it could be a common bug, maybe a fever that has driven him to this. They had been through so many different scrapes in the past months, from being soaked in rain, snow and hail, to being dunked in the ocean, so is it any wonder he might be coming down with something? She hears Jack's calm voice piping up in her head, reassuring her that there is a rational explanation…

As she puts the last of their supplies on the gas to cook through (sausages, eggs and more beans, all from tins) she stirs it thoughtfully, revelling in the weak heat which the small stove radiates. Well if he doesn't want to tell her what is going on, she will continue to treat him like normal. Kate has no use for kid gloves.

"Hope your hungry," She smiles vigorously towards the bunk, "We gotta keep our strength up."

A disgusted scoff comes from beneath the mound of blankets and a muffled reply, "I'd murder somebody for a McDonalds right now…"

"It's best to avoid going to McDonaldsor other fast food places if you have a habit of doing so," She muses surely, "When we were spotted in San Francisco, Dharma will have realized we were on the road to Nevada. If they wanna find us bad enough, they'll divide and eliminate sections of the city. If you like certain fast food places and they know that, they'll _watch_ those areas. Those places also have been installing cameras which watch over the counter and the eating areas – some cameras you can see, but some you _can't_. And cameras are bad."

"It's just a _burger_ Kate," He breathes, making no effort to hide his irritation, "Why'd you have to make everything so damn complicated?"

"We need to alter your buying habits," She continues, almost talking to herself as she draws patterns in the beans with the spoon, "When you're on the run, you throw your old self away… so you need to discard as many predictable patterns as possible. One of the worst mistakes I made when hiding was maintaining old habits. _Patterns_." Her lips twist as she remembers how this had gotten her caught. The Feds had known she would return to see her mother, and she'd walked right into their trap. She wouldn't make the same mistake again.

She turns to see Sawyer lying in bed trying to light a cigarette. His hands don't seem to be responding to his wishes, and turning the heat off, she kneels by the bunk briskly. "So if you're a smoker, you should stop." But off his murderous look she smiles wryly, rolling her eyes and lighting it for him anyway. "If you frequent bars, stop. If you enjoy hot and spicy foods, you're gonna stop buying them and change to mild food. And _no_ McDonalds."

"You wanna just dig me a six by four out in the back and be done with it?" He mutters beneath his breath, but she knows he is only testing her. And his eyes are twinkling tiredly. She shakes her head returning his smile,

"You can joke about it all you like. I know it might sound crazy to you but –"

"Who says I'm joking?" He looks to her squarely, his eyes dancing. He seems to be waking up a little, and she feels her anxiety passing over his condition – maybe she will grow to learn he's _always_ a moody ass this time of the month.

"But we're working toward disappearing, right?" She continues undeterred, "And patterns are predictable. So let's break them."

She knows he is not in agreement with her, or happy in the slightest about the prospect of any of what she just said – so she is amazed when he just nods, and sits in the bed. He winces as though his head hurts, but quickly looks about, adopting a fierce air of normality as his eyes light on the spluttering sausages and beans on the hob.

"Let's break wind first huh?"

* * *

Astride the border of north-eastern Arizona and south-eastern Utah, the dodge burns through Monument Valley at about six that afternoon. A broad expanse of flatlands punctuated with hundreds of towering burnt red sandstone pillars, spires and pinnacles, the ominous Valley seems to glow in full sunlight, then stand out in stark silhouette as evening shadows creep across the valley floor. The monuments are awe-inspiring, and dwarf the tiny shadow of the black dodge which skirts along barren Highway 163. 

Even though Sawyer is pale as a sheet and the sweat is pouring from him, he stubbornly refuses to let Kate take the wheel from him. So to make sure he is aware of her annoyance, she sets about reading him the passages from the lonely planet handbook of hers, about the history of the place. Fully aware that the only history Sawyer is usually interested in is that of a sexual kind, it's obvious to say he hates listening.

"The massive eroded monoliths resemble crumbling castles," The obvious amusement in her voice kicks up, "Ancient temples, and tall skyscrapers bear such descriptive names as Castle Rock and Alhambra."

"I can think of a couple _more_ descriptive names…" He mutters, and she continues with a grin in her voice which verges on laughter,

"The Setting Hen, the Mittens, the Bears Ears – Monument Valley's austere beauty epitomizes the universal image of the great southwest – and hey, the 'famous John Wayne movie Stagecoach' was even filmed here."

"That a fact…?" Sawyer smiles with exaggerated interest, "Well then hold onto your bonnet and hike up those petticoats, we be passing through _gen_-_u-ine_ Apache Country Freckles!"

"It's a _Navaho_ park Sawyer," She corrects, "A Navaho Indian _Reservation_ actually."

"You know what? You kill me sometimes." He laughs, but then coughs heavily. She looks to him challengingly, the smile not falling.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. You sit there and make my ears bleed with every last useless scrap of history about this godforsaken place. And I just realized, I probably know more about the Clucking Hen and it's damn _Bears_ _Ears_ than I do about _you_."

He smile fades a little. She certainly hadn't been expecting this turn in conversation… he is finally voicing one of the problems which lay at the heart of their journey together. Both had known, but had been happy to carry on in ignorance.

"What do you want to know?" She says guardedly. He shoots her a look, and she thinks he is going to ask the dreaded question. The one which Jack had posed all those months ago…

_What did you do Kate?_

But as his eyes return to the road, she thinks she sees a fleeting look of disappointment on his face. And she knows suddenly he won't ask. He had just set her a test, to see how far they had truly come – and she had failed. She still isn't ready to open up to him.

"What's your favourite position?" He sighs, with a flash of dimples. She laughs out loud, and pins him with a withering glare, but inside she is amazed that he has backed off, given her the space she desires. And just for a moment, she feels _elevated_.

As her eyes flicker back out the window to the wide open planes, they pass out of Monument Valley and shoot out into the vastness of Highway 98 together. She squeezes his hand on the gear stick and plants a kiss on his cheek. And she suddenly feels the crazy notion that only Sawyer could make her truly feel liberated even when they are on the run.

* * *

Gouldings Lodge sits atop a slowly climbing hillside just east of Monument Valley, and as the sun gives up trying to shine from behind thick grey clouds, the dodge coasts into the parking lot, kicking up a cloud of silty red dust in its wake. The small rickety lodge boasts a 99c store, a gas station and a tiny old diner which backs out onto million dollar views of the colossal red buttes of Monument Valley. 

Kate was initially set on buying food staples from the store and getting right back on the road again, but after noticing Sawyer didn't seem to be beating his cold, she remembered how he had his heart set on a McDonalds. So, leaving him propping up a rickety picnic bench overlooking the Valley, she ventures inside the old-fashioned diner and orders a large burger with everything.

Even though the diner is empty at this time of year, she feels uneasy in here. And she suddenly realizes she didn't feel half so bad when they had been flitting through the store – with a sharp twinge of surprise, she realizes that she has grown so used to having him with her that now she is on her own again, just for ten minutes, she feels utterly exposed. _It's ridiculous,_ she thinks casting her gaze out the panoramic windows where she can see the land falling away, and Sawyer's silhouette at the edge of the picnic area, _He's right there. No one is taking him away from me..! _

Suddenly she stops herself short – and reacts to her feelings of neediness with outraged horror. Since when did she ever need the company of another to make her feel strong? She has always prided herself on her self sufficiency, and the thought that she is growing attached to somebody sets off alarm bells in her mind. So she forces herself to stand taller, and damn well handle this on her _own_.

As she waits nervously she feels her insides shifting uneasily, and she clasps her hands over her stomach. It's just nerves. It's too early for it to be anything else – but the thought of what it could be makes her fiercely clench her stomach muscles to try and prevent the involuntary movements. And when she orders another burger, she tells herself she needs to keep her strength up for _herself_, not for two.

As she approaches the picnic bench, she sees Sawyer turn primed and ready to give her hell for being so long getting the food. But when she places the burger on the table in front of him, she watches his expression hold… then slowly soften. As she sits down opposite him and begins to eat with an expectant look dancing on her face, he meets her gaze.

"Thought you said fast food places were dangerous. Break patterns."

"It's just a burger Sawyer." She says around a mouthful of bun, "Hurry up. It's getting cold."

And the smile he gives her warms her like nothing else.

After the meal, as Kate bustles off to use the restrooms, Sawyer fixes his smile on his face until she is out of eyesight, then allows his defences to drop. He drops his head between his knees and brings his hands to his face. The world is spinning, and even though it's a brisk night he feels like he is _burning_ _up_ –

_Theresa falls up the stairs Theresa falls down the stairs_

Black circles flutter across his vision. His hands tremble so hard he spills coffee everywhere and scalds himself. But he doesn't feel it, and who the fuck is _Theresa --?_

"My nanny. When I was a kid –"

Jerking back with a sharp intake of breath, Sawyer looks up to see a familiar sight sitting before him, white as death. Boone regards Sawyer's adverse reaction in faint surprise from behind dark shades, and sighs defensively. "Well you _asked_. It's a long story, man. To be honest, I don't even remember it --"

"_Look,"_ Sawyer's voice wavers as much low, dangerous anger he can muster. "I already told your damn sister to quit stalking me. What, you're tag teaming me now!"

Boone suddenly freezes. Just stares at him, unreadable from behind those maddening shades. Sawyer bites his tongue, wondering what in hell he said to get such a reaction…

Boone only looks to him… and slowly, removes his dark glasses.

Sawyer can only stare into that face as everything around him recedes hopelessly far away. Because where Metro's eyes had once been startling blue, they now stare back at Sawyer pure white. Dead.

"Don't wind me up man," Boones flat voice begins to encroach on something which could have resembled anger, in life. "I mean it, don't wind me up –"

"Oh what are you gonna do, _decompose_ on me!" Sawyer hisses in disbelief, and suddenly, the dam of resentment he has built up about these pesky ghosts bursts, "Don't wind _you_ up? D'you ever think about what you're doing to _me_ right now? You or your brat of a sister ever think a that? No of course not! Bet the two a you planned this, let's just haunt Sawyer and drive him _ape-shit --"_

Sawyer's vision flickers past Boone and catches an elderly couple of tourists steadily backing away from a picnic bench nearby, shooting him unnerved looks. This is just great, this just _completes_ his anger, "And now people think I'm _talking_ to myself. They think I'm _crazy_ and I'll bet you're getting a _kick_ outta this –!" Sawyer watches Boone watching _him _with those glassy white eyes and an expression of surprise. Cursing and rubbing his aching head, he goes to get up when –

"You've seen her?" Boone breathes, as though he can barely draw breath enough to talk. _"Shannon's still here?" _

Sawyer regards him with world weary indifference and sighs, "Course she is. Maybe they got bored of her whining and kicked her outta Heaven. Even Hell wouldn't let her in. Gives me hope that at least the place has _some_ standards –" He goes to move away but Boones words echo on the wind and make him stop.

"She's got unfinished business Sawyer. That's why she's still here, and I can't leave until I know she's alright. _She's_ my unfinished business, I know that –" His words pick up steam, "Don't you see what's happening here? She's appearing to you because her unfinished business concerns _you _Sawyer."

As Sawyer turns cautiously, he hears Shannon's words...

_I could give you the one thing you want in the world_

And his gaze hardens. Boone is staring at him anxiously. "Well? What did she offer you? She must have offered you _something_, right?"

_You help me find Boone, and I'll help you find your mother_

But Sawyer can't bring himself to say it. It's a physical thing, he just can't get the damn words out through the almighty roadblock of emotion in his throat. Boone only shakes his head, "Okay, maybe she hasn't told you yet. But the next time you see her, you have to tell her I'm looking for her. Please – just arrange a meeting, a time, a place, something, _anything_, okay? Seriously man, you got no idea how important it is I find her…"

And Sawyer has a feeling. Through the descending cloud which is slowly forcing its way into his thoughts and mind, he understands something. If he's going to make a pact with the devil and have Shannon search out his mother, he understands that Boone must be a part of it all somehow. He doesn't know how yet, but he believes suddenly that the boy wouldn't appear to him for no reason.

"I'll think about it." Sawyer drags his backpack on and turns away, starting back towards the car. But Boone isn't through, and follows –

"I have one more question –"

Sawyer shoots him a look of disbelief, never breaking his stiff stride, "I think you'd better quit while you're ahead, son!"

And as Sawyer unlocks the dodge and climbs in, Boone leans on the door, watching with a distant glow to his pure white eyes. "Did she ask about me?" His voice encroaches too much onto human emotion for Sawyer's liking and his headache kicks up another notch.

_"No._ Now get outta here. Scram." He yanks the door shut and when he looks back, he watches Boone's form drift slowly away from the dodge, unfulfilled and bleak. Still wearing that damn tank top and jeans too.

"Gay as a damn Christmas tree." Sawyer mutters beneath his breath.

* * *

As they begin their drive east on Highway 98 to make their connection with the Interstate on 191, Sawyer finally relinquishes the wheel to Kate. After she had returned from a queasy toilet break where she had managed by some miracle not be sick, she had returned to find him sitting in the passenger seat of the dodge. Concealing her surprise, she had taken the drivers seat, wondering what on earth could have changed in him to make him concede this way. Wordlessly he had given up the reins for now, and she is glad he is trusting her with the journey. After bickering a little about directions, and which routes were easier vs which routes were safer, they settle for taking a longer, yet undeniably more secluded route towards Tennessee through Colorado, Kansas, and Missouri. They would alternate between short stints on the Interstate at night and using back roads during the daytime until they made it there. 

Now, as dusk begins to tint the sky, Kate is close to losing her temper. Sawyer has been grouchy all day, and both their tempers are now fraying badly. She's sure that if she were anyone else he would have exploded long ago, and it gives her a small measure of satisfaction that he is restraining himself thus far. But God, he tries her patience sometimes.

She shoots him a look of barely tolerant patience as he massages his temples for the thousandth time, the very gesture now grating on her nerves. "If you've got a headache you should have said so back at the gas station. We could have brought some _aspirin_ –"

"I _don't_ have a headache." He sighs curtly.

"Maybe it's because you need your glasses," She carries on like she hasn't heard a word he said, "You really should've got that sorted on the boat, there was an _opticians_ there –"

"Yeah, along with two _Feds_ if I remember correctly."

"It's no excuse," She shakes her head, "Not if it's going to be affecting you this badly. You bring the glasses Sayid –"

"_No_._" _He grits in annoyance, "And what part of _'I don't have a headache' _is Kate code for _'give me a lecture?'" _She puts her foot on the brake and they jerk forth. As he watches in astonishment, she hauls the car over to the side of the road and stops with a jolt.

"The hell are you doing!" He bellows in pain then regrets it instantly as his headache kicks up twenty notches again. _Damn her_. But she is only looking at him with those green eyes, tinted with anxiety. He can hear the strain in her voice that she is trying to hide as she grits,

"What is _wrong_ with you?" He turns from her probing gaze and unlocks the door to her total surprise. _"Where are you_ _going_ --"

"Need some air." He mutters, dragging himself from the car,

"Sawyer!" She calls indignantly after him, but he only slams the door and leaves her looking after him in complete confusion.

* * *

As Sawyer clears the verge at the roadside, his footsteps slow. He feels like he has physically just crossed the threshold from reality to a surrealist dreamscape. Because high on this desert plateau in north eastern Arizona, there unfolds before him a landscape of unique and haunting beauty. 

Transformed by natures alchemy from wood into stone, the remnants of a bygone forest lie scattered and gleaming in the dying sun before him. In an area where the hills themselves are tinted with horizontal bands of colour, thousands of glittering, multicoloured logs of stone are strewn across the countryside below him...

_A petrified forest. _

He shoots a look behind him, as though expecting to see a neat doorway which he has just passed through in the middle of this nothingness that somehow brought him here. But there is nothing.

He moves slowly down the rise, as though drifting through this alternate universe with world weary suspicion. What are these logs doing in the middle of the desert with no other living tree in sight? How were they changed from wood into stone harder than steel? As he walks down the rise, his eyes rove over the huge petrified logs… glinting in every colour under the rainbow, some of them have got to be more than 100 feet _long_…

His footsteps crunch unevenly over the ground. He looks down to see something sparkling in the dusky light. Kneeling in his daze, he drags his hands through the dusty soil, and can barely believe his eyes. _Crystals_. Jasper, agate, amethyst… he breaks a shard off a rusty coloured log. _Pure_ _jade_…

He looks up to see Kate studying him nervously.

"Look…" Sawyer gestures around, suddenly needing to hear her confirm this is real, that he's not just stepped another twenty paces away from reality. "You _see_ all this? _Y' see?" _

Kate looks about and nods, clearly overwhelmed. "It's the petrified forest… one of Arizona's landmarks. I'd kind of hoped we could stick inside Utah, but…"

Her voice trails off as she sees him looking down to his hands. He looks up and as her eyes fall on the gemstones, her face lights up. Somehow, finding this here is almost magical. The smile which lights up her face only adds to the haunting beauty of this place, of these moments, and suddenly all the bickering is forgotten. As she kneels next to Sawyer in the crackling carpet of fall leaves and cups his hands in hers, she is entranced, and he loves it. There is still unexpected beauty in this lousy world, and it creeps in, from time to time to poke him in the eyes.

She sits besides him, and they look through the gemstones. "Mineral deposits inside the petrified wood…" She breathes, and he feels the heat from her hands warming his as she meets his gaze spellbound and breathes, "You think these are worth anything?"

He feels himself smiling softly. "Not enough to get ourselves caught for trading."

Her eyes return to his, resuming their serious cast. "When we get to Tennessee, you'll have to get as much money as possible. It's maybe the worst thing we could do, because Dharma will be able to track us… but it's the only way we're gonna be able to make it. We need money."

"I know…" Sawyer breathes, not wanting to ruin this, not yet.

"You'll have to clear your accounts. Everything you've got."

He winces uneasily, "I don't know if it'll be that easy…"

Her brow furrows as he stands and starts back towards the car. "Why won't it be that easy?" She calls, walking after him fast.

"It just might not –"

"Why?" She knows suddenly, with an awful feeling she _knows_ it has something to do with why he was on the plane, that he'd been in some kind of _trouble_ –

"Quit it okay?" He hisses, yanking the car door open,

"Sawyer –!" She cries indignantly at his tone –

He spins angrily, _"Just drop it – !" _

She has been through this routine so many times with him it is rapidly growing into a well worn ritual. She recognizes how his shoulders clench under the weight of his anger, as he leans on the dodge. As his back turns away from her she recognises the shuttered look of pain in his eyes, as he sets about blocking her out, ignoring her. It is always this way.

Hopelessly disappointed in him, she turns fiercely and stands, desperately needing to get away before her anger boils over into scorching _fury_ –

But she refuses to let herself run. She feels she is losing ground beneath her, like they are both regressing irrevocably into their past selves and far away from each other. How can they plan their desperate future when they can't even talk about their most fundamental feelings, when neither one of them is brave enough to breach the boundaries of the past and be honest about what they have done?

_Would you tell him what you did if he asked you Katherine? _The voices probe in their leering, loathsome tones, sliding like dirty oil through her mind, _Would you? _

And she knows with a furious pang of frustration that she wouldn't. She doesn't trust that his feelings for her, _whatever_ they are, are strong enough to withstand the truth. Maybe that is what lies at the core of it all…

When Sawyer looks to his hand, he sees he is still clenching that piece of jade tightly, and he thinks that it reminds him of her eyes. He won't give it to her. He'll never tell her about it. He'll keep it to himself, a small token of her which he can keep in his pocket always. If Kate runs, if he is left alone, he'll always have this. As useless a chunk of rock it is, for some crazy reason, it feels more precious than the rarest uncut diamond.

And after a moment, through the terrible fog of this migraine pain which obscures his vision with its strength, he sees she has moved away, and now stands up ahead on the crest of the mountainside. Silhouetted against the foggy blur of the world and squinting as he is, he could have mistaken her for the classic heroine of an age old story, her hair all blowing, staring outwards with such gung-ho passion. But as he struggles to focus, reality encroaches and it's just Kate, battered Kate in her scuffed cargo pants and haunted expression, and she ain't no heroine. She's just a _woman_…

And he wishes feverishly that he could believe that.

"I thought we'd come _further_ than this…" She calls softly, hating the way her voice wavers at the last. She is almost chastising herself too, remembering how she had skirted his questions earlier…

"Just cause the window dressing's changed sweetheart, don't mean the land lies no different than before." He says in a gruff, yet ultimately resigned voice.

She can't look at him, because she is scared he is right. They will never be strong enough to break out of their patterns, not inside, not where it counts. "I thought we could talk to each other." She says, voice low and hurt.

"I'm talking to you." He mutters.

"You're speaking but you're not _talking_ to me," Her eyes flash and her voice is suddenly hard and hot with emotion which chokes her throat. Her eyes sting, as she swings back towards him fiercely, "You're listening to me but you're not _hearing_ me." The sickness, everything. There is no communication here. She advances, emphasizing each word, knowing she will hurt him but desperate to drive the point home, "I don't care what you did. If you don't want to _tell_ me, that's fine. Don't. But if anything you did is going to make the cops come down on us, going to cause them to be looking _out_ for you, _I want to KNOW._ I _deserve_ that much!"

"You deserve that much…" He echoes.

"_Yes_." She grits.

She waits dully for him to pull her up on her earlier reluctance to tell him about herself, but to her amazement, he only holds his hands up in disgusted submission, and scuffs up the verge to look out over the sun setting on the eerie landscape below.

After stewing a moment, Kate joins him. And after drifting in their own private oceans of thought for awhile, Kate hears a voice from the shadows in Sawyer's direction.

"I'm losing this, Kate… How's this gonna work…?"

In her own worn-out state, Kate misses the way Sawyer's voice is more hoarse than usual. "Running is the easiest part…" She says tiredly, "Hiding is a bit harder. Staying hidden is the difficult part. The difficulties are always determined by the resolve and resources of those hunting us. If Dharma are as powerful as we think and they want to find us, they _will_ unless we're willing to sacrifice everything**."**

She listens to his silence a moment, and her eyes trail up to the lonely horizon, as though daring to look up the road for the very first time into their future, "After we've found Garrett's wife and gotten these… _things_ out, we're still gonna have to be careful. It's going to be difficult, but I think we can do it. We can't go any place we've talked about or stated a desire to visit. We can't run to any place predictable, like a city or town we've ever been to or contains known family members. And especially not something obviously stupid like running to _Las Vegas _or _Hollywood."_

Her voice takes on a distant tone, as she goes through her mental checklist of places that would be unsafe, "If we run to the hills, satellites can see us and identify the type and color of the automobile we're driving. If we're hidden in a cabin, any standard police equipment can read our thermal signature. Even if we drive to a road and abandon the car and walk to a cabin 30 miles away, body heat sources in a cabin in the desert or in the woods with no corresponding automobile heat source can signal where we are. It's suspicious, right?"

Silence.

"Sawyer?"

She turns to see Sawyer's eyes have closed. He is slumped back against the gentle rise of the road verge, his chest rising and falling rhythmically. She is stunned. How can he fall asleep in the middle of the day, with everything that's going on? Her temper flares suddenly. He's not taking this seriously, he probably hadn't even heard a word she'd _said_ –

"Are you asleep! _Hey_ –" She shakes him – but as her hands grip him, she feels his arms are taunt through his coat, like he is highly charged. His skin has gone waxy pale, drained of colour. In the last of this cold white sunlight, he looks _grey_. After a moment, he makes a thick guttural sound in his throat. Then his eyes roll in his sockets, and he moans softly. The sound strikes some hidden part of her, and creeping unease begins to close in her…

"Sawyer. _Hey_…" She shakes him again, harder out of anxiety. His head whips back and forth with her motions and his eyelids flutter open a little. He sucks in his breath sharply and jerks away from her touch, looking goosed at her close proximity. She only stares down at him until his skittering eyes return to hers and she can anchor them with her questioning gaze…

"Hey…" She breathes softly.

"_Hey…"_ He murmurs, looking unsure what is going on.

"You ready to move out?"

"Yeah… yeah, of course." He stutters. She helps him up, and the fact that he doesn't immediately protest he can do it on his own sets alarm bells ringing, and cements the ever-growing certainty in her mind that something is rapidly going badly wrong here…

* * *

Kate can't sleep, and as they no longer have enough money for a motel room since she splashed out on burgers, she drives through most of the night. For awhile, the dodge burns along through moonlit roadways in Colorado, where she glimpses the Rio Grande from time to time, as it rushes down steep, densely forested mountain slopes. She lets her mind wander out with its churning waters, and imagines, as she had done with the eagle how it would feel to simply rush through the countryside from the San Juan Mountains right here in Colorado all the way across country to finally empty in the Gulf of Mexico. The crossing into Kansas and then Missouri is uneventful, and as Sawyer sleeps besides her, she makes a conscious decision not to worry about him or what is waiting for them in Tennessee. Maybe once he has slept off the worst of his bug he will awaken in a better mood tomorrow, and everything will be okay again. Until then, she diverts her attention by listening to the scratchy radio quietly and looking out for landmarks which she has always wanted to see. 

As the hours wear on and the early morning sunshine begins to paint the world in soft, bleary colors, the dodge comes upon the Missouri river trundling along at its own lethargic pace beneath nights fading blanket of remaining stars. She considers waking Sawyer to share in the amazing sight of the mighty brick red waters gushing alongside them, but thinks better of it. For the past hour she has noticed his breathing growing shallow and laboured, and she resolves that the next rest break they take she will force a whole bottle of cough syrup down him. She will not have him getting sick, not when they are making such good time.

On the back end of those practical thoughts follow the deeper ones, ones she will never admit to. Feelings of exposure and vulnerability without him at her side… and now, out of the blue, the memory returns of being dragged away from him at the wedding ceremony on the Oceanic Princess, when they had been so close to each other, yet had been drawn irrevocably apart… and the horrible feeling suddenly cramps her stomach again. She has to keep reminding herself to quit being ridiculous, he is right _next_ to her, nothing is going to _happen_ to him…

"Shaconage…" He suddenly breathes, and Kate shoots him an increasingly anxious look as he repeats with mounting urgency, "_Shaconage_…"

"What?" She falters, "What's Shaconage? Sawyer?" But he seems to have drifted deeper into his strange sleep, and her insides twist sharply. He's just dreaming, she tells herself. Whatever he's coming down with is _not_ any more serious than she'd thought, tomorrow he will be _okay_…

* * *

At five am they coast across the Mississippi Tennessee line, and suddenly growing aware that Sawyer needs to be the one to guide them the last miles home, Kate finally leaves the I55 as the sun begins to rise, making it dangerous to be on the Interstate. Finding the nearest turnoff is for Nashville, she follows the east bank of the Cumberland River and just before they reach downtown Nashville, she pulls into the first diner she finds which is open. As the car finally trundles to a stop, ticking and hissing, she checks the softly blinking clock on the dash. It's nearly half six now, and hopefully the place will be only populated by truckers who kept their noses to themselves. 

"Rise and shine Sleeping Beauty," She smiles as she turns to Sawyer, and rubs his arm. He doesn't so much as wake up as crack his eyes open, and grunt incoherent curses. Smiling, knowing how much he hates being made a fuss of, she makes a big show of resting her hand on his forehead.

"Oh, your feeling sick now? Well maybe if we'd brought some aspirin when I _said_ –"

"Get your hands off," He grumbles, getting out huffily, "I'm _not_ sick."

The small café near Nashville is indeed mostly deserted. Kate tries to make Sawyer eat but he is grouchy and pale, and growing increasingly distant to her annoyance. She understands that by coming back here, he is facing demons that have haunted him long and hard which is more than she feels she could do – but she _can't_ understand why he is pushing her away, snapping at every single thing she says… it hurts her more than he knows, and would probably care, she thinks in irritation.

She had also found to her shock, that he didn't know the way home. When he had thrown that one into the conversation with a guilty, faraway look, Kate had only stared at him in utter shock, feeling betrayed. He had brought her this far, asked her for this much trust, and all the while he never really knew how to get to where they needed to go?

So she goes to get refills at the counter in hopeless frustration, biting her tongue, seething over how to handle this now. The waitress (a hefty bosomed blonde with a great white beehive and thick makeup) is watching Sawyer closely, with a lustful look which verges on the disturbing. The nametag on her heaving chest bobs, _'Darbie'._ As Kate slams the mugs on the counter and waits for her attention, she sees the woman must actually be in her early sixties – even the war-paint can't hide the lines.

"Good lookin' fella you got yourself." Darbie rasps, motioning with her nose over to Sawyer, huddled in their corner booth, "But he looks like he's 'bout to keel over."

"He's fine." Kate keeps her eyes on her wallet, sorting through change.

"Don't look it. Bad cases of fever going round right now – some backwater folk even been deep-sixed by it. And lordy, I don't want nobody dying on my premises, if he's unlucky enough to have it, girl you'd best get him to the hospital –"

Kate's eyes fly up to the woman in shock at the sheer ridiculousness of the comment.

"He's not going to _die_ –" Kate says dismissively, "I just need to find his old home – he used to live around here. He'll be alright once we get there…"

"Used to live round here, huh?" The woman chews her gum with loud, infuriating smacking sounds, "What's his name?"

Kate blushes suddenly. Sawyer isn't his real name… suddenly she remembers the diner of the Oceanic Princess, their hushed confessions.

_What were you called when you were younger?_

"James." She says softly, looking over his slumped form in the booth, heart suddenly kicking in her chest…

"James, huh…" Darbie sighs, then suddenly something hits her. "As in James Ford? That's not little Jimmy Ford…!"

_Jimmy and Katie. Best left in the past, huh?_

"Yes," Kate's eyes light up, _"Yes that's him."_

"Christ almighty, he grew up big as a damn ox…!" The woman's eyes rove over him appraisingly, "Quite the looker too, who'd a thunk…? Scrawny scrap of a child. Hell, I don't believe it. That kid had to be six or so when he got shipped outta town." Her nose wrinkles distastefully, "Nasty business, those Fords..."

And now it's Kate's turn to be shocked. "You knew him back then!"

The woman shrugs her shoulders in a rounded motion, "I knew his mother Jenny. She was a helluva good tipper too, darn near thirty years ago."

Suddenly a possibility opens up, just the tiniest flicker of hope. If Sawyer is getting sick and can't remember the way to wherever it was he had wanted to go here, wouldn't it be better to take him to his parents? Maybe they could be convinced to help… and if Sawyer got bad enough, maybe they could take him to the hospital. It would be dangerous, but without her around, she might not give him away.

"Well hell," Darbie chomps her gum thoughtfully, "If your bound and determined to head out to the old Ford ranch, last I heard it was somewhere west on I40. Somewhere between Knoxville and the Great Smokies, I guess…" Her eyes suddenly light with memory, "Head down the I40 till you reach Helen, then go west towards the Great Smokies till you see a statue of a Black Bear. Their ranch used to be down that way."

"How will I know which one it is?"

"Oh, you'll know it." Darbie smiles sardonically, as though at a private joke Kate is not a part of, "It's the only one out there."

"Thanks." Kate flushes gratefully, heart thumping as she grasps the coffee cups, and just as she moves out of earshot, the lady mutters,

"My, you folks sure got yourselves some morbid curiosity."

* * *

As Kate hops back into the car after filling up the tank and spending the last of their money on supplies, she sees Sawyer is leaning against the door of the car, seemingly in that strange sleep again. Far from the breakfast waking him up as she'd hoped, she now sees he is getting worse. All her conscious decisions last night to hold out until morning and hope he would be better after sleep now seem ill-founded. Because he is going rapidly downhill. Sweat streams from his forehead, but now when she braces her hand there, she feels he is burning up. 

"Wake up Sawyer," She breathes tenderly, rummaging through the nearest paper sack and emerging with aspirin and cough syrup. She gently shakes his arm and is shocked to feel he has gone stiff again – but this time, he is rigid. His arm feels ramrod solid beneath her grip as she tries to rouse him while the voices repeat maliciously,

_Bad cases of fever going round right now – some backwater folk even been deep-sixed by it_

"Come on now…" Kate's breath quickens, "You're getting sick. You need to wake up now okay? Wake up and take these. _Come_ _on_…"

Sawyer's lips are moving, and she leans close, wondering if it is a reply… when he suddenly begins to shiver violently. "Can't go back… it's a trap… _don't_ _do_ _it_…"

The sheer desperation in his voice strikes her hard as she shakes her head, "You need to take these. Sawyer, it's a fever. It's just a fever, we can fix this, _but you have to take these –"_

"_Shaconage…" _He breathes again, and abruptly the shivering subsides and he goes limp. She quickly feels his neck, finds his pulse even… and leans back in her seat uneasily. She has to take him to his parents. It's dangerous, but he needs _help_…

* * *

The dodge has been racing along the I40 which winds ever further west towards the imposing loom of the Great Smoky Mountains for what seems eternity, and what is in reality, just over two hours. Kate keeps her eyes riveted on the countryside as they pass the turning for Helen, waiting on seeing that statue – and continually shoots Sawyer worried looks. He has now grown still, his shivering gone completely – and this worries her more somehow than when he was muttering and shaking… 

What will she do if his parents won't help? Sawyer has never spoken of them, and from what she can make out of him, he has a troubled past. What if they don't get on, worse still, what if they refuse to help him?

But she can't allow herself to think that way. She can only pray they will see the state of their son and put aside any differences for the time being, at least until they can find out what is wrong with him and get him back on his feet –

Suddenly a black shape fleets past the windscreen, and she immediately slows the dodge, and heart racing, she backs up… to see the statue of an immense, glistening black bear looming down from the crossroads.

She looks down the road they will have to take. Does a dirt beaten track even _qualify_ as a road? The dense pines nearly barricade the way altogether… can this really be the right road?

She shoots Sawyer a look, fleetingly thinking of trying to wake him and ask – but one look at him tells her he is not going to wake up. Instead of succumbing to the icy fear that thought brings, she slams her foot down and takes off down the lesser beaten track, away from civilization and the world as they know it.

* * *

After travelling for a good hour, through dense forested roads the dodge now rides along a dirt prairie road, amidst long waving fields of corn. Kate is going out of her mind, and now she is nearly besides herself that she has taken them in completely the wrong direction – the Great Smoky Mountains are drawing ever closer, how can anybody live so far away from civilization? This is not where she pictured Sawyer's parents living, not at _all_… 

After another twenty minutes of Kate growing increasingly more frantic, finally a pale shape looms against the misty purple blue of the mountains on the horizon. Loathe to believe it and yet desperately hoping it to be true, Kate steps on the gas and laces her fingers through Sawyer's cold hand.

"We're nearly home now," She breathes, "I got it all under control Sawyer. It's going to be okay, I promise. You're going to be _fine_…"

As the dodge reaches the great timber gates and bumps onto dusty gravel, Kate at long last coasts it to a stop outside the porch of a stunning, long forgotten ranch house. Old and draughty, it stands tall and proud at the base of the Great Smokies, and as she kills the engine, she rests back in relief…

…until she turns to see Sawyer. His face is now deathly pale, and he has an expression of deepest pain knitting his brow tight. Her heart lunges in shock – _when did he get this bad!_

She jacknifes out of the car and tackles the porch steps two at a time, not looking around, not taking anything in at all. And as she brings her fists down on the old mahogany door, her cries resound from her, lost of all control now,

"_Hey! Hey open the door! I have your son here, he's sick – open the door! HEY…"_

Suddenly her gaze focuses on what she is seeing, and actually process the state of affairs around her. She slowly steps away from the door, eyes wide and in denial, in complete confusion…

The porch is crammed full of countless seasons worth of leaves, the windows are grimed thick with dirt. There is no light coming from inside, no car out front, no cattle in the paddocks which run alongside the house…

"Open the door…" Her voice croaks from her in a broken whisper, _"Please open the door…"_

Kate doesn't understand. The world is falling away. There are no parents, no sign that anyone has even been here for twenty, maybe thirty _years_… this can't be the place, it can't, she must be wrong, better be wrong than lose all _hope_ –

Staggering down the porch steps she careens around the side of the house through a windswept garden, out into the back. The land stretches away into nothingness as far as the eye can see, and the corral is empty, _it's fucking empty like everything else –_

"HEY!" She yells as she turns back towards the house, as desperation overrides all her carefully built defences, as she tips her head back and screams up at the yawning building, _"Help me please!"_

When suddenly she focuses, again, and processes what she is seeing…

The house. This beautiful, age old Cherokee building.

From here, she can see why there is nobody here. Why his parent's cleared out, never to return. Because from here, she can see an entire section of the roof is blackened, and burned clean away.

Backing away from the massive building, shaking her head numbly the words escape her, _"I got it wrong…"_ She murmurs to herself like a mantra she is using to hold onto her sanity, "I got it wrong, _this isn't the place,_ _I got it wrong –"_

Her back cracks against a corral post with a painful thump and she turns, eyes roving across the countryside, looking for another house, an answer, _anything_…

And finally, she sees it. Her heart lunges and everything seems to slow to a halt around her. The wind whistles to a breeze, the corn rustling morphs into white noise, and an ominous creaking is all she can hear. Rusted hinges grating over old metal… and she is suddenly scared. This answer isn't the answer she wanted…

Because painted in high great letters on a squeaking sign which hangs over the gates of the bare corral, is an all too familiar word.

SHAC-NA-E

_Shaconage, _the voices sigh triumphantly in the whirlwind of her mind, _Shaconage, Shaconage. _

That's what he had been trying to tell her. Shaconage is the Hell he had spoken of. And now they're stuck here, they cannot leave… and there is no one around, no family, _no help in_ _sight_…

_What have I done?_ Her mind whispers in panic as the horror rises up to greet her, that if he really is as sick as she fears, that she may well have just sealed his death.

_What have I done…!_

* * *

**PLEASE REVIEW MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! **

This is the biggest chapter ever, and I humbly thank Louise, Kirvash, Katherine Austen, Ravenmoon, Bcat, Viggly, Mousewolf, and every last one of you who is keeping me doing this. I love you all, and hope I'm doing the story justice for you guys! x


	35. What dreams may come

**Chapter 35**

**What dreams may come**

_To die, to sleep;_

_To sleep; perchance to dream;_

_Ay, there's the rub:_

_For in the sleep of death what dreams may come_

_When we have shuffled off this mortal coil?_

------ Hamlet, William Shakespeare.

_He who fights with monsters should be careful,_

_Lest he hereby becomes a monster…_

------- Friedrich Nietzsche

Spiralling down out of the vastness of an Indian summer sky, the rain falls softly. A gently soaking curtain… and little James looks up to the sky with shocked, baby blue eyes. He knows what is coming. So young, he can still feel it on the air – a life lived in the wilderness has accustomed him to every whisper on the breeze. He can feel the thunder growing inside him, trembling through his rib cage before it gains the strength enough to break on the air, like an angry lion.

What happens next is blurs, as Mommy's big mare that he has crept upon to stare at spins in fear. James sees the whites of its eyes as it rears up on its hind legs, bucking – a streak of jet black – and suddenly the wind is driven from him. He plunges through the straw, clutching his chest and as the mares legs stomp down he scrabbles through the grit, tearing up his hands and knees, and writhes under the corral fence. Finding his feet as the rain picks up he dashes towards the house, never looking back.

Scrabbling up the porch steps and battering through the screen door, James's footsteps resonate through the empty house as he barrels up the echoing hall into the kitchen – where he blindly flings out his arms with a wail and buries his head in his mother's legs.

"Well now James, what you gone and done?" Jenny Ford sighs, her usually neat blonde hair pulled in a frazzled plait over her shoulder, "What I told you 'bout getting too close to that mare? One day she's gonna turn round and trample you some!"

James looks up through swiftly welling eyes, "I's sorry Momma! I just wanted ta see her! I di'nt mean nuthin --"

She lifts him onto the work-top and applies anti-septic to his knees and hand. He winces, biting his cherub lips as fat tears run down his cheeks. Jenny looks up with time worn care in her face as she wipes his cheeks. "You be a big strong boy now James. Cryin's for girls – and you're nearly six now."

Determinedly James nods, his chin quivering with the weight of his suppressed emotion – as his tear filled eyes fall on his mothers arm. She was halfway through bandaging up her own hand… off his look she sighs, and rolls her eyes. "Damn horse's been tetchy all day. But I'll break her. You'll see."

As his mother looks out of the window, James shivers at the sight of the big black mare which nearly trampled him. He huddles into her side, loves the way she smells of tossed hay and everything nice, "Why don't you just let it go Momma?"

Distantly Jenny sighs, "Because some things you can't let go James. No matter how much you wanna… it ain't so simple as that." Her gaze follows the contours of the black mare as it canters and bucks around the corral, spooked by the rain. "Every year that infernal horse comes back down here. Caught the rest of her herd, you'd a thought she'd know to stay away. She's the last of her kind… and she's wild, James. _Completely, utterly wild."_ She wraps her arms around James, drawing him close and parts the net curtain so he can see. "See the way she's bucking out there? She's got sight of the trees, wants to run. She's got the taste of freedom, got it in her blood… she hates being captive."

"Let it go," James whispers, the sight of the massive sleek black horse madly kicking up mud and spray in the rain scaring him, "Momma, I don't like it, _let it go –" _

But Jenny only shakes her head, "Sweetie, you won't understand. You're too little… but when you get to be bigger, you'll know what I mean. Some things are a matter of pride, baby bear. I _can't_ let it go. I just gotta keep right at it till I break it… or it breaks me.'

James looks up to his mother in awe, wondering if he'll ever understand what she means. Snapping back from her dream, Jenny seems self-conscious as a wide smile warms her face, and she holds her arms out. "What do big boys get for being good?"

"_Monster hugs!"_ James squeals, face lighting up as he throws his arms around her.

Jenny laughs, wincing at the pain in her arm as James half crushes her – but the enthusiasm in his embrace is worth the pain. "That's it!" Jenny grins with mock-menace in her voice, "And what happens if boys aren't in their beds before nine?"

"The bogeyman come gets 'em!" James nods earnestly, shivering nervously -- when suddenly he feels his mother stiffen in his arms. He doesn't like it. He is confused, and is surprised when he hears --

"What are you doing here?"

Jenny pulls away and James sees the silhouette of a man in the shadows of the kitchen doorway. His heart lurches and he pulls his scuffed knees to his chest, and _his Momma looks upset, _"I told you not to _come_ here until James was in _bed_ –"

A low voice replies, sly and coated in devious dripping charm. It is the voice of everything low and foul, and James instantly hates it. "I had to see you, and Dave's truck wasn't out _front_ so –"

"_Are you the bogeyman…?"_ James interrupts anxiously. To his unease, the stranger enters, only looking down on him with a snakelike grin.

"Why yes I am." He approaches in close, hooded eyes glinting as he rests his hands on the counter either side of James, "And d'you know what they Bogeyman does to little boys who don't go to bed?"

"Quit it," Jenny warns, but the intruder is only smiling down at James, taking relish in this unforeseen power trip –

"He drags them under and _eats them whole --!" _

James scrambles off the work surface in fear, and Jenny turns on the man angrily, "What are you doing, you'll give him _nightmares_ –" Turning to him she reassuringly holds out her hands, "Come here sweetie." James suspiciously nestles behind her legs glaring up at the Bogeyman, and Jenny suddenly turns to him with a somewhat hesitant expression. "James… this is your Uncle Sawyer."

James looks up to his Uncle Sawyer with mistrust. The man rolls his eyes boredly as Jenny sighs anxiously, picking James up and brushing a warm kiss on his cheek, "Now I want you to go upstairs to bed okay? And don't come back down here –"

"But it's my birthday in _two_ _days_, I _can't_ sleep!"

"Yes you can." Her smile falters, "Go on. Right now sweetie. Dream of all the lovely presents you're gonna get."

"I got presents?" His eyes light up as Jenny nods. Shooting the Bogeyman one parting glare, James takes the stairs up to his room two at a time. Changing into his pyjamas he grapples with Megatron, his prize Transformer and excitedly tells him he's going to get a bike, he _wants _a bike. And once he's brushed his teeth, perching Megatron between the tap and sink so he can carry on talking to him, he suddenly remembers Momma never gave him his bedtime story. Dragging Megatron by the hand he moves quietly down the stairs, and frowns.

The kitchen doors closed. Momma always told him to knock, but he doesn't listen to Mommy lately. He's a big boy now, and its exciting to see what happens if he doesn't listen to her – like looking at the mare. So biting his lip, a mischievous smile stealing across his face, he tiptoes closer… hugs Megatron tight…

And flings the door open with his best lion belly ROAR –

To see the Bogeyman bent over the kitchen table. As the man jerks back the cry dies in James's throat in confusion, as his Momma pushes the Bogeyman off her in shock.

The Bogeyman only stares down at him with a self satisfied look of triumph, and before James knows it he is attacking the mans legs with squeals of fury, "NO! Don't hurt my Momma, _get away don't eat her –"_

"James – JAMES!" He feels strong hands encircle him as he fights ferociously, "JAMES STOP!"

He turns in shock to see his Momma buttoning her shirt, hair all messy. "I gotta save you Momma," James breathes tearfully, _"I don't want him to hurt you --!"_

"He's not _hurting_ me," Jenny breathes, shaking with anger, "What are you thinking? _What are you thinking?!"_

"_He was hurtin' you…"_ James's insists, mouth quivering fiercely, "I _saw_ him!"

"He wasn't," Jenny grits, cheeks burning crimson, "It's a way of being _nice_, Jimmy. It's a way of showing somebody you like them very much." James only looks up to her in shock, unable to understand. Maybe when he's older, like she's always saying, he'll understand. But now he's just scared and confused, and Mommy looks about to cry. "You won't say a word to your father, _you hear me?" _

"Why?" He stutters defiantly and what she does shocks him deeply.

She grips his shoulders, and she shakes him hard. His head whips back and forth, her breath hot on his face, "Because you're gonna listen to your _Momma!_ Good boys don't disobey their Momma's do they? And if you love your daddy, you'll only tell him nice things, okay? This is our secret. You're a big boy now. _You know how to keep a secret, right?"_

Suddenly the room grows freezing.

The shutters bang and the lights flicker, and a cruel wind howls through the room. All motion ceases… and the world is a motionless tableau. _A still frame out of time._ A woman screams at her five-year-old son with a slick conman watching triumphantly… This is no regular memory.

_mindlock_

Something is wrong, here…

_mindlock mindlock MINDLOCK!_

Suddenly the wind grows into a vicious voice, rising, whispering through the electrically charged air, "Yeah… you know how to keep _secrets…_ right Sawyer?"

_That voice._ It doesn't belong here, in this memory or this time. It's low and self satisfied and full of infuriating _pleasure_ –

James Sawyer Ford, aging con-man and 37-year-old fuck extraordinaire suddenly realizes he is standing _in the middle of his memory_, in the middle of his mothers goddamn immaculate kitchen, watching his five-year-old self meet the conman who would kill his parents for the _first time…_

"Son of a bitch…" He breathes in shock. This is not like any dream he's ever been subjected to – he's never guest starred in any of them before. He brings his hands up to see he is pale, can see the damn floor straight through himself… _what the hell…?!_

"Welcome to Limbo, _Sawyer_."

As his gaze jerks up from this suspended scene, they rest on the source of that poison voice, a face long dead.

Ethan, sits at the kitchen table opposite him with a smug leer on his pale face.

* * *

As the icy night begins to grow to sub-zero temperatures, Kate tries to wake Sawyer in the car – but he won't respond. He doesn't so much as a _groan_ under her shaking him now. Terrified she has made a fatal mistake she lunges back in the car, refusing to succumb to blind panic. She is _stronger_ than that. And if he is as sick as she fears, her actions now could determine whether he lives or dies. She has to get him out of here, get him to the nearest _hospital_ - there is no question that she can write off his condition or make any more excuses. Even if Dharma has operatives inside the health sector, it's a risk she no longer hesitates in taking. Not when his life is on the line. 

Her blood pumps furiously as she turns the engine over – but a wheezing choke splutters through the air. Rolling her eyes and cursing fiercely under her breath she rams the key again. The engine coughs in the cold night, but does not catch… and then she sees the red light on the dash.

They are out of gas.

The realization hits her in stages. The first is denial. They can't be out of gas. She filled the tank in the town not a couple of hours earlier. It must be a mistake –

Shivering in the arctic night she jacknifes out of the car, navigating around it to kneel by the back fender, breath blazing white before her… and her eyes widen in shock.

There is a rainbow-hazed puddle growing ever larger in the dirt beneath the car. The fuel line is ruptured. They have had an accident… _and now they are stranded here._

Her legs give out beneath her as she sits back with a thump… and it hits her.

_Bad cases of fever going round – some backwater folk even been deep-sixed by it._

He is getting progressively worse. Unless she gets him help within these next critical hours, the very real possibility dawns on her that he is going to die. Right here.

Breath coming thick and fast she is moving before she even knows what she is doing. Scrabbling to her knees then her feet, she careens towards his door. Yanking it open, she tries one last time to rouse him, but to no avail. And she realizes now how hot he is, _how blisteringly hot…_

She knows she has to get him inside, get his temperature down. Grabbing a torch from her pack she careens doggedly towards the looming ranch house. She tries to jimmy the front door to no avail, but finds that where the paint sealing the window joints is cracked, she can force the front bay open. The underlying panic gives her strength she never knew she had along with an almost foolhardy recklessness, and it isn't long before she is clambering inside into the darkness.

Slamming the torch on, she moves the flickering beam of light cautiously about. It looks like this was once a dusty living room. The air in here is stale and dry, as though nothing has been aired in a long time.

As she eases the torch around, her heart takes a slow descent. It's like going back in a time warp. A moth eaten happy birthday banner droops from the mantle, its shine tarnished by the decaying hands of time eating away at it. As she turns tersely, she sees water stained presents lying forgotten on the floor by an armchair. The paper has ballooned in the damp, then grown taunt and parched, disfiguring the tigers that leap over them. She leans down to inspect them out of morbid curiosity. The tag snaps off like the most fragile of silken threads in her hand, and she can just discern blurred ink on the back,

'_Baby Bear, our big strong boy! Happy 6th Birthday. Lots of love and monster hugs, Momma and Daddy.'_

A lump shifts in her throat. Could these possibly have been meant for Sawyer? The eerie atmosphere in here gets to her as she drops the tag, mind reeling. What on earth could have _happened_ here…?!

She makes her way into the hall. Nothing seems to have changed. Set so far away from roads and all civilization, Kate guesses no one ever came across this house to loot it. Faint smoke marks stain the staircase leading upwards, and she makes her way up, intrigued.

The landing is littered with late autumn leaves, and she shivers as they rasp along the old wooden floor in a breeze. There is a dark stain on the wooden floorboards in the centre of the hall, and as Kate looks up, she sees that although someone must have tried to rebuild the roof, there is a portion in the back bedroom which is totally bare. She can see the hard stars through the exposed girders, and knows this must have been where the fire started. _It was his room. _

The sight of it triggers a brief flash of a memory. Something he had told her about lighting fall leaves… but it is gone again before she can grasp it. Slamming back to the dire matters in hand, she knows she has to get Sawyer inside, and fast.

* * *

"_You…!"_

Somehow, when he wasn't looking Sawyer realizes that the landscape around him had changed. He had experienced a sense of vertigo, and now he is standing out front of Shaconage when it was still beautiful, still undamaged. And Ethan is leaning against a paddock, with a malevolent expression. "The hell are _you_ haunting me for now, _I didn't kill ya!_ Why don't you track down the limey runt and give him hell?!"

"You don't get to ask questions, Sawyer." Ethan says in a low voice.

"I don't get to ask questions?" His voice crackles with rage, "You show me things I've buried, you bring me here, you tell me I'm in LIMBO and I can't ask questions?!"

"Slow on the uptake, aren't you? You don't have _time_ for questions. You're facing the greatest test of your life. Shall we begin?"

"The hell are you talkin' about –" Sawyers instinctively backs away, "What _is_ this?!"

"This is about recognizing what a worthless, sickening parasite you truly are," Ethan smiles, advancing, "This is about ghosts. This is about you _reliving_ what you have done. This is about seeing yourself for _who_ _you_ _truly_ _are_."

And as if on cue, the world suddenly swings into motion around them like someone has hit play on a VCR – and Sawyer turns as a peal of wild laughter rings on the wind.

Leaves crunch and the world spins. James is laughing and wriggling so hard he can barely breathe in excitement as his Daddy stuffs leaves down his shirt, his great sun scorched face lined with rare playfulness. Sawyers heart kicks in his chest as he realises what he is about to see, and he turns to Ethan furiously –

"Don't do this. _I don't want to SEE this –"_

"You're tearing up the grass David!" Jenny has moved onto the porch and watches father and son tussling in the leaves, the worry which is there eclipsed by the complete adoration which warms her face.

"We're not raising grass Jenny, we're raising a _boy!" _David emphasises this by stuffing an extra large handful of leaves down James's shirt, and hearing his fathers voice sends shudders of grief and hatred through Sawyer, "You wanna take that back squirt? Huh? Who'd win in a fair fight? Huh?"

Sawyer watches miserably as his younger self cackles wildly, great peals of joy, _"Megatron!"_

"Now that's not the right _answer_, is it?!" More leaves, and dizzy from laughter James relents with an exhausted screech,

"Daddy'd win! _Daddy'd win –"_

Sawyer turns to Ethan fiercely, "I know I'm all those pretty names you called me, _don't you think I know that?!_ I don't need to _SEE_ this –"

"But you do," Ethan smiles, "Because you're getting notions Sawyer. Notions that you can change. That you may be worthy of love, that you could actually _give_ it. And you have to see this, because you have to remember – _you are NOT good._ You are not worthy of any of those things."

Sawyer's jaw clenches as he turns to see his father raking the last leaves onto the massive pile in the middle of their dusty lawn, and it kills him because he never _saw_ the excitement in his father before. When he was five, he never noticed how his lumbering old man had been so damn excited about his coming birthday. "We're gonna have a party James. It'll be _great_, nothing too big mind, but we'll decorate up real good, we'll invite your _friends_ –"

"I don't _have_ any friends." Little James rolls his eyes noncommittally.

"Well now that ain't so." David frowns, "What about Hetty? She's gotta eye for you."

"Wha's _that_ mean?"

Ruffling his hair tenderly, David smiles. "Means she thinks you're _nice_. That she likes you very much."

Sawyer sees the way James stiffens. The way he stops scrabbling for leaves and his face gets all worried and jittery. Slowly he stands, biting his small lips nervously… "I don't _want_ her to like me. I'll hate her if she does."

"Son, you slay me." David chuckles heartily, "You're a good looking kid. Hetty likes you. You can't hate her for that!"

"I do." James's is pacing, his face red with strain, "I'll hate her. _I hate her –"_

David turns, sensing this is real. Disturbed by his sons colouring, he stops throwing leaves on the pile and turns down to him. "What'sa matter kiddo?"

"I don't wanna be nice –" James cries, "Nice means lying and lying's _bad_, nice is bad, _nice means doing what Momma was doing –"_

David frowns in confusion, eyes still dancing like he is waiting for James to deliver the punch line. "'Fraid you lost me there baby bear…"

"I told you I'm not nice. I _told_ you. Momma said it wasn't nice to tell you –"

"It wasn't nice to tell me _what?!"_

"_James."_

His mothers voice chills Sawyer, even now. After all these years, to hear his parents speaking again hits him hard, and all he can do is stare. Little James wheels about to see his mother standing on the porch hugging his packed lunch in her arms. David turns to her in confusion. "The hell you been filling his _head_ with, Jen?"

Jenny's face hardens as she motions to James, "Jimmy go get your mittens, they're on your dresser –"

"_No."_ David steps forwards now, and grips James' hand. "No, he's not budging an inch. Not till he explains himself."

"Daddy I'm sorry," Jimmy begins to get scared, tries to wriggle from his grip, it hurts, _"Daddy I tried to be good –"_

A helpless observer, Sawyer turns to Ethan who now stands at his shoulder, watching this display with morbid fascination. _"Please,"_ He murmurs, "Stop this _now_ – I'm gonna break his heart, I can't _see this –"_

"What was Momma _doin'_ James?" Suddenly, David doesn't like the look on Jenny's face. Not one _bit_…"Well?! _Talk_, you ain't got a tongue in your head –?!"

"David stop – you're scaring him!" Jenny starts forth but David spins, splaying a hand out warningly and Jenny halts, shocked at his expression. "What the hell is wrong with you?!"

"James," David kneels before him gripping his shoulders, _"What was she doing?"_

"Daddy I don't _wanna --"_

"James --"

"Daddy I wanna be _good_ --_ !"_

"You tell me RIGHT NOW –"

"_She was being nice to Uncle Sawyer!"_

"Uncle… Uncle _who…?!"_ As David laughs crazily, he meets Jenny's gaze and her obvious shock deadens the sound in his throat. "What kind of _nice_, James…?"

Hopelessly caught in the middle, James begins to cry. He is not a big boy, he is not good, "She was… she was just showing him she _liked_ him…!"

Sawyer's mouth hangs open in horror, as he relives the fear of being five and staring up into his father's face, remembers how there had been a fundamental change in his fathers eyes, like a light going out, and the way the same hands that had only moments ago been stuffing leaves down his shirt slackened on his rain slicker.

"Daddy…" James whispers, tears streaming down his cheeks, but he's so _stupid_, he can't speak, _"Daddy…"_

"You did good, baby bear…" Daddy murmurs, but he's looking at Mommy like he is going to cry, "…you did real good."

But James knows he's lying, James knows he _didn't_ do good. Daddy doesn't mean it, he doesn't want to give him monster hugs or play in the leaves anymore. And this is the last time James looks into his Daddy's face alive.

As the bonfire burns ever higher, Ethan turns to Sawyer with an expression of amusement. "Why do you look so sad?" Sawyer can't bring himself to answer, only stares into the fire, leaving Ethan to sidle in closer… "I think it's because you knew he was lying. Because deep inside, you knew…_ he hated you."_

"_You don't know a damn THING about my father –"_ Sawyer cries in a broken voice.

"Does that look like a father who loves you Sawyer?" Ethan waves a hand out to the now frozen scene before them, and seeing his fathers hopeless face, Sawyer cannot lie… and Ethan grins triumphantly.

His Daddy had been his damned hero back then… in the years after Sawyer would grow poisoned by his hated of him, but then he had looked up at that rugged, sun baked face and honestly believed his father was a super-hero. An honest to goodness God among men. He'd never looked up to anyone more. And Sawyer has never forgotten seeing the look on his father's face that morning, that _broken_ look…

"And who broke him, Sawyer?" Ethan's smile widens in anticipation…

"Me..." Sawyer grits, heart failing, just crumbling away in his chest, _"…I did."_

"So if you broke him… whose fault is it that he went off the deep end?"

"_Mine…"_ Sawyer's voice, a whisper, _"It's my fault." _

* * *

Blindly bracing her arms beneath his, Kate locks her arms about Sawyers chest and tries to lift him, but she can't budge him an inch. It's like he's dead weight, and he doesn't even respond to her moving him anymore. "Come on," She hisses down at him, "Come on Sawyer, you've got to wake _up_, just long enough to help me here, you have to _help_ me here –" She tries again, but to no avail, "You know I can't do this on my own! You know I can't help you if you don't try. You have to try – Sawyer – Sawyer, _please_…" 

She sinks to her knees, and buries her head in the cool folds of his jacket… when suddenly her head burns, where she knows the implant is nestling…

"You're beyond help. I told you once already…" As Kate turns in surprise, she sees Ana-Lucia staring down at her in sadness.

"_Ana –"_ Kate chokes back her tears, "Ana you have to go and get help, he's unconscious and I can't wake him up, and the fuel line's broken, and there's no gas _and it's all going_ _wrong ANA_ –"

"I can't get you help Kate," Ana kneels before, clapping her strong hands on her shoulders, steadying her. "No one else can see me, _you know that –"_

"You have to go, you have to _try_ –" Kate's eyes spear hers in frantic worry, "You're here for a reason, well _help_ us!"

Ana advances, "Look, I came to help you but _not the way you think –"_

"Ana, you're not _listening_ to me. Sawyer is _sick_. He's unconscious, he's got a bad case of the fever and I need to get him _help_ –"

"Nobody can help him, Kate."

The sheer insanity of Ana's words wind Kate. She can only stare up at Ana's ghostly face in utter refutation of her words. It can't be true. It _can't_ –

"Nobody can help him," Ana continues, brow knitted, "Because he hasn't got a fever Kate. And even tied up to the best machines in the business, looked after by the best doctors, he won't recover."

Kate can only look up at her in spiralling horror as Ana's eyes finally meet hers, and Kate recognizes the look on Ana's face as one she's never seen before – _fear_.

"Dharma have him in a mindlock. It's been growing in strength over the past 24hrs, and now it's got him."

_Dharma_. The name burns like acid. Kate should have known that no illness they would ever have would be without some kind of influence of theirs. She listens to Ana explaining what will happen to Sawyer, what the mindlock involves, but she doesn't really _hear_ her, can't wrap her head around the words. How can one corporation have the power to command such a deadly weapon, inflict such evil? She feels her insides burning with hatred for Dharma and everything they stand for.

When Kate turns around she finds Ana inspecting the car – and she realizes she is somehow fainter than the last time she saw her, her body less substantial somehow… and Ana's eyes meet hers with a concerned dark flash, "What happened to your car wasn't an accident Kate. Somebody _sabotaged_ it."

Kate stares to her in a daze, and Ana stands. She seems to make a hard decision, like she is finally willing to tell Kate something which has been troubling her greatly… and suddenly Kate doesn't want to hear it. She had believed things could get no worse, and now she knows with a terrifying certainty that she is _wrong_…

Ana takes her time kicking through the loose gravel to kneel before Kate, not allowing Kates burning gaze to hurry her. It is like she is gathering herself, bracing herself… and when she finally looks up, her sleek black hair trailing down her back, Kate is shocked to see raw sorrow in Ana-Lucia's face.

"Ethan is coming for Sawyer. He'll visit him in his mind, in whatever dream world Dharma will lock him in, and he'll take on disguises of everyone closest to him in order to break his mind…" Her voice drops, as though she is losing the nerve to say anymore… but she grits her jaw and takes Kate's hand in her freezing touch. "If the mind is broken Kate, it _dies_. And if the mind dies… the body follows."

Tears stream freely down Kate's cheeks. Her chin quivers wildly as she presses her hands to her face, trying to push it down, push down the pain of what she is hearing. Ana looks away, looking angry that she has to be this messenger of fate. Gritting her jaw, she allows Kate a moment, before turning back and continuing,

"You gotta be _strong_ Kate," Ana holds Kate's wrists tightly, drawing her out from behind their protective shield, "You gotta be strong for _him_, but moreover, you gotta be strong for you. You can't fall apart. Because if Sawyer dies, and Ethan _wins_, he'll come after you next. And you gotta be _ready_ for that –"

"He's not going to die." She hisses for the second time that day, but all her earlier indifference is a long forgotten memory. This time she can barely draw breath enough to say the words. _"He's not going to die."_

And suddenly her fiercely sparkling eyes meet Ana's viciously. "You said you were here to help, but you _can't_, can you?" Kate spits as Ana regards her, "Because if what you say is true… Ana, you can't possibly help us. _No_ _one_ _can_…"

Ana's frustration at her helplessness gets the better of her as she stands briskly. Her words are tight and curt with repressed anger, "I warned you, didn't I? I told you all I know, that's all I can _do –"_

"Ana – " Kate calls after her as the tough Latino strides away up the dirt road and away, "Ana wait – please! I need your help – you have to help me move him. Please!"

And just when she thinks Ana will leave her behind, the shadow stops… and turns. As she returns, she wordlessly slings on of Sawyer's arms over her shoulders and Kate takes the other. He is radiating heat like a furnace as they drag him up the dirt track towards the looming ranch house.

Getting him through the window is tough, and staggering with him up the stairs nearly breaks Kate's back, but after struggling with him for half an hour, they finally manage to heave him down in one of the bedrooms which is still intact, and remarkably well preserved. Kate even finds some blankets in the tallboy opposite the bed, which although smell musty, are dry as a bone, and she covers him up.

Finally stepping back to survey their handiwork, a heavily sweating Kate braces her hands on her knees as she shoots a look to Ana. Who, of course, hasn't even broken a sweat. Can ghosts sweat? Kate isn't sure.

"Good luck," Ana says as she steps towards the draughty doorway.

"Hey – you can't just _leave –"_ Kate looks to her in shock. Ana-Lucia had never been her favourite person, but the thought of being left here to bear this terrible weight alone is almost more than she can bear. When Ana stops, she does not turn. But her words echo through the desolate room – not accusing as such, but _confused_…

"You could see he was sick, so why didn't you turn around? Take him to a doctor while you still had gas?"

Gritting her teeth, Kate flushes, "I thought his parents would be here, that they'd _help_ –"

Ana gives her a strange look… "How's your _memory_, Kate?"

Thrown, Kate falters, "It's… it's _fine_."

But Ana is looking to her in something like sorrow. "You sure about that?"

"Of course…!" Kate retorts tiredly, _"Why wouldn't it be?"_

* * *

Ethan leads Sawyer to the dark corridor. The one which had staged so many of Sawyer's nightmares, and where his mother's body is lying on the floor. Sawyer can't look. He can't talk, he can't think. All he can do is succumb to the pain. He can't ride it anymore. Not here. Here, he drowns in it. 

Seeing this through an adults eyes is not kind. As Ethan leads him down the hall, Sawyer realizes that as a kid he had seen things so differently. There is less blood than he remembers, but then again, he never remembered bullet holes, which he now sees in his mothers chest.

"Can you see what you did Sawyer? What you caused?" Ethan says briskly, and he won't let him stop, keeps him marching towards that fateful room at the end of the hall.

"I didn't shoot her," Sawyers defiant words are hopelessly hollow to his own ears, "It wasn't my _fault_ –"

"I see…" Ethan nods, as they stop before Sawyer's old bedroom, "What about this?"

Sawyer watches as little James stands over his bed and flicks the match onto his father. He sees the realisation shoot through his young face that the fire is burning his father away into nothing like the leaves, and he doesn't need to see, he _remembers_ the feeling, the black horror that consumed him

_I don't want daddy to burn away like the leaves_

And for the first time Sawyer remembers grasping mortality. Knowing that when the fire burns away fast and hard, there will be nothing left of Daddy – he will be forever gone. There will be no more monster hugs, no more roughhousing in the fall leaves, no birthday celebrations tomorrow. His Daddy will be dead.

Helpless to intervene, Sawyer steps aside James backs out of the hazy room, smoke stinging his eyes, and his sneakers bump against hard weight. He turns to see Mommy still playing sleeping lions, and now blind panic grips him. The tears scald. He bangs to his knees, crazy, squealing and shouting and shaking her but his motions don't so much as move her. Whimpering in fear, he buries his head in her jacket which still smells of horses and faintly of washing powder, and he cries in anguish that she has to get up, that Daddy is burning away while she plays her games, _why she isn't_ _LISTENING to him_ _and_ _the fire is getting hot_ –

James curls up into a foetal ball next to his mothers lifeless body, resolving that if he can't help his Daddy, that he can at least make his Mother happy by playing sleeping lions with her. Sawyer watches himself as a boy, wishes he could clench his arms around the miniature, insignificant child. He never realised how tiny he _was,_ he always thought he was big and strong, whereas in cold reality he was only a scrawny kid, a snot nosed kid crying his damn heart out over his dead mothers form.

"Get up!" Sawyer hisses in furious anger, knowing he'll never change the past but helpless to stop himself trying, "Get up _goddamn_ you and call somebody! Don't lie down and let this happen, _do_ _something_, you can still _SAVE_ her –"

"You couldn't save her," Ethan suddenly materializes in the smoky hall opposite, watching the scene unfold soullessly, "You never could and you _know_ it. Gut shot, Sawyer. Worst kind. A slow, unpleasant death… but a death all the same."

With a primal bellow of hatred Sawyer flies at him, this bastard who is driving him closer with every breath to insanity – with a lifetimes worth of rage and pain his fists fly hard. But Ethan dodges effortlessly before Sawyer can grip him, and he knows he can't hurt him. As he collides with the wall and sinks to his knees, his stomach dives and he watches the world blur before his eyes, feeling that familiar sense of sickening vertigo…

* * *

Padding through the moonlit room, Kate rests a handful of flannels on the bedside table and sinks to the creaking bed beside Sawyer's still form. She studies his face pensively, brushes the strands of his hair from his soaking forehead. Sweat drenches the sheets, and she sighs anxiously, eyes drifting to a tin bath which she had dragged up here earlier and filled with ice water. Resolving to soak as much of him as she can in cold water, she sets about undressing him. 

Her hands trace along the contours of the body she had grown to know so well over these past months. She burns everything into her memory, as in these twilight hours, this act takes on almost religious devotion. She draws the shirt from his back and studies the angle of his sloping shoulders, the hard rise of his chest, and as she shucks his trousers off her eyes move over the length of his legs, the arc of his hips. She drinks in every inch of him as though scared she will one day forget how he was, how he feels beneath her, what it is she loves about him. But he's not gone yet, she reminds herself forcefully, so there's still a chance. Whilst there's life, there's hope.

Getting him into the icy bath drains the last of her strength and for awhile she sits with him, head resting on his shoulder, giving in to the overwhelming need just to be close to him. She draws patterns in the water, but when she feels her eyes growing heavy, she forces herself to get up and journey downstairs. She takes Sawyer's clothes, intending to wash them, so that when he wakes up he'll get a kick out of her playing housewife.

Miraculously Kate had found this place still had power – she could barely believe when she had testingly flicked a light switch that the room had exploded in garish light. An angry racoon had startled and flew for the root cellar, whose doors yawned open – she had closed them uneasily and set about unpacking their few groceries into the larder. And as she now makes coffee to stay awake, she brushes a layer of dust from an ancient washing machine. Her luck doesn't hold out though, as it doesn't work at all. Instead she fills the sink and dumps his pants in, checking the pockets. As she is just about to soak his shirt, her hand crunches around paper and she draws it out curiously. _Dear Mr Sawyer…_

Something jars. Deep inside, a memory struggles to resurface as she reads on…

_You slept with my mother, then you stole my dad's money all away. So he got angry and killed my mother. And then he killed himself, too… you killed my parent's Mr Sawyer. _

As she knocks the water faucet off and turns to the hissing kettle, she lowers the letter in a daze… and finally, a semblance of that memory returns.

_Six years old Kate. Six years old, and after I dropped a match on my Daddy's chest I walked into the hall, closed the door and played sleeping lions with my momma until the fire fighters booted the door down --_

And with such force she can barely breathe, she remembers. His parents are dead. His father had shot his mother, and then turned the gun on himself, right in front of Sawyer. How could she _forget_ that his parents were dead?! Even as her eyes frantically reread the letter, it is so blindingly obvious, so _stupidly_ _obvious_ –

Why didn't she remember something so vitally important? Something which would have stopped her coming here, perhaps saved him? What is _happening_ to her?!

"_ANA!" _She yells, turning the dreaded letter over and over in her hands, and spinning in the kitchen in despair, _"ANA come back!"_

* * *

"What do you want, right now?" 

Those same, rehearsed lines. How Sawyer hates hearing them now – they have come to represent his most vile, lecherous side. And as he sits in the corner of a hazy motel room, the shattered light hurting his eyes, he watches the bed where Cassidy smiles at his double, runs her hand across his face.

"You used her all along, didn't you?" Ethan shakes his head in disgust, and in a flash, Sawyer is assaulted by a barrage of memories. Cassidy and himself on the road, conning their way across the south, Cassidy smiling up beneath him as they screwed, telling him she loved him, and him lying to her straight to her face.

_I love you too baby_

Christ, he was convincing when he wanted to be.

The final image is Cassidy's big brown eyes gazing up at him, glittering with tears as she unknowingly whispers her final goodbyes to him.

_Just remember that you're strong. Thick headed bitch shoulda seen you coming. She's to blame here, not you. _

And when she is out of sight, Sawyer actually wipes her kiss from his cheek before going back inside to collect his hard earned wage. Sawyer sees all these things now and hates himself for ruining her, for destroying what could have been a relationship if he'd ever really loved her, if he hadn't been set on her money, if he hadn't been so hopelessly fucked up.

"Do you know what happened to her?" Ethan looks down to Sawyer and suddenly they are in a darkened motel room – and Cassidy, sitting on the floor crying her heart out over a broken picture of them on the floor. She has cut herself on glass.

Sawyer's instinctive reaction is to get away – he never wanted to see the aftermath of her destruction in Baton Rouge, where he had promised to meet her. As she gets up to answer a knock at the door, Sawyer turns to Ethan fiercely, "You struck out on this one, monkey boy! Shoulda done your _homework_. I never loved the bitch, I don't care if she cries a damn ocean, you're wasting your _time_ –"

But Ethan never loses that self assured smugness – and just points to the door. As Cassidy reaches it and opens it hopefully, _"Sawyer?"_ The door is thrown back on it's hinges. Without a moments hesitation, a dark figure strides into the doorway as a whip _crack_ of gunfire explodes in the air –

Sawyer spins in shock to see Cassidy fall to her knees. A choked gasp of shock escapes her as she stares up at _Gordie_, Jesus Christ! The man meant what he said, holy fucking Lord in Heaven – the man is gripping Cassidy's hair as she bleeds on the floor, leaning down menacingly, "Where's your little lover boy Cassidy? Huh? Where's my _money?"_

Suddenly the scene freezes, and Ethan looks to Sawyer with gleeful expectancy. "Now do you see what you've done…?"

Sawyer is only staring down at her. There is no emotion on his face, but his eyes are welled full, his breath stopped.

"Everything you've ever done has _consequences_ Sawyer."

"Cass…" Sawyer's voice is a dry, hopeless whisper. This can't be true. It couldn't have ended this way, it's not _possible_ –

"This is what the consequences are," Ethan sighs, "You have to understand. You don't help people Sawyer. It's not in your nature…" Ethan moves through the frozen world of the Baton Rouge motel room and cups Cassidy's still face in his hands, _"You kill people."_

* * *

Ana Lucia appears before in the kitchen as though she has always been there, as though Kate can suddenly see her simply because she _chooses_ to. As Kate strides towards her, eyes burning fiercely, her voice rages with furious anger – 

"Its my fault we're here, isn't it? I knew his parents were dead, I should have _known_ that, he _told_ me, he made me _read_ this!" The look of sad resignation which fleets across Ana's face only infuriates Kate further, "What's _happening_ to me? What are they doing to me Ana?"

Ana looks away sadly but Kate isn't buying her silence. Suddnely it makes her want to scream, wants to shake her. But she roots her feet to the spot, locks her knees and forces herself to stay calm. "You _know_." She hisses, and the hysteria is creeping through her voice, "I should remember things, but there's holes now. _Why?!"_

"Kate, take it easy okay --"

"Tell me the _truth!"_

"Kate, I mean it --"

"_TELL me!"_

"_It's because your seeing ME, okay?!" _Ana bellows in retort, and Kate is stunned. Ana continues unwillingly, "You happy now? I'm guessing you're _ecstatic_. Every time you look past reality, _into_ _my_ _world_, you lose a little of your own. I don't know how, or why. I only know that it happens, and it's completely random what you forget." She pauses as she ponders an explanation for this madness, "Maybe you have to use so much of your headspace to see me, that the mind kinda deletes old information… deletes _memories_. Maybe it's your heads way of taking out the trash…"

"I can't believe this…" Kate murmurs, and she turns from the room, needing to get away from Ana's cold rationality, needing to be near Sawyer, near any kind of comfort. As she reaches the bedroom and sinks next to him near the tin bath, she holds her head in her hands. Ana enters uncertainly, trying to placate her in her ham-fisted way…

"Mostly it's only little things –"

"Little things?!" Kate repeats incredulously, gesturing to the room, "Ana, it's my fault we're here! There was nothing _little_ about that memory, it could have saved his life!" Kate looks down to him in exhaustion, "I could have _saved_ him…"

Ana shifts her gaze, grows distant… and kneels by her. _"You're wrong." _

Kate refuses to meet her gaze. She will never allow anyone to take the weight of this deed from her shoulders. She is to blame here. "You can't save him," Ana sighs, looking to Sawyer's impassive face, and says softly, "He's gotta save _himself_, Kate."

* * *

When Ethan is not nearby, Sawyer verges on consciousness every now and again – but it seems hopelessly faraway and surreal. At one point, he is trudging through a blizzard. Trudging through the freezing snowdrifts, he comes upon the dirt-stained window of his old home. Wiping away a circle in the grime, he gazes through to see Kate, _Freckles_ is curled on _his_ faded sofa, clutching his backpack to her chest with his letter in her hand and rivers of tears running down her face. He tries to open the window, bang on it to alert her, but he can't. All he can do is watch her slowly unravel, coming apart at the seams, and he is powerless to help her. It has always felt this way, but to be in the moment, living the reality of her being so physically near and yet far from him, it makes him sick to the stomach. 

But he no longer believes he can make it back to her. He wants to, _Christ_, he has never wanted anything so dearly in his entire pathetic life. He wants to get back to her, hold her, tell her his demons and pray she'd see past them to the incredibly fucked up man inside… but he doesn't believe he should.

The sight of Cassidy buckling beneath Gordie's gunfire never leaves him. But in this limbo, it is no longer Cassidy he sees going down, oh no. Kate is shot down, again and again, and there is nothing he can do to stop it. She dies right before his eyes…

And standing in the snow looking in at Kate so near and yet so far, he is suddenly scared. Because he knows he will never touch her, hold her, drive her to insanity with his damn crabby behaviour anymore. He won't see the wrinkle in her nose when she laughs or the way her two front teeth jut out the tiniest bit. Their time has passed, and this is all he has left, staring in at her through snowy windows in Limbo.

The milk ran out on the seventh day. The only way Kate marked being at Shaconage, and the week milestone of Sawyers illness was to throw the bottle out and feel annoyed at herself – because she could just _hear _Sawyers outraged accusations that she'd hogged all the milk. He'd throw up how she'd hogged all the blankets back in The Door all that time ago, and she'd give him an indignant look of her own, throwing back at him how he always hogged driving, and then there'd be an insult match, which would end up with her wanting to drag his clothes from him and have sex right here in the kitchen, because she _always_ got a thrill from their sparring.

It plays out so realistically in Kate's head that when she comes back to herself, it hits her with a crushing feeling to realize it had never happened at all. And it stuns her suddenly that she should miss him so badly… she had never expected it. And as she looks out over the dusty, snow scattered corral, she has never felt more alone in her life.

Days roll into a week, into a month. As the seasons change, autumn giving away to winter and deepest snow, Kate knows the seasons of her heart are changing with it. She can never be the same. Whether Sawyer makes it or he dies, he will change her forever. There has been a slow, gradual worsening in his condition, which she has been powerless to alleviate. Nursing him all this time has taken away essential parts of Kate – her impossibly cold heart, her obsession with self-survival – and replaced them with emotions she greatly fears. Powerlessness, loyalty, protectiveness… and deepest, primal devotion. The very fact that _Katherine_ _Austin_, fugitive and stone cold killer could be holed up in a tumbledown ranch house overseeing the final days of this man rather than taking to the hills astounds her. But a terrible fire has built in her over the snow drenched days, a fire she cannot quell, and a fire that Sawyer stokes in her as his words replay in her mind,

_I'm a monster Kate, I'm cursed, and you wanna run away? Well maybe you should – maybe I'm telling you to –_

She wants to run. She physically _craves_ it. She sees herself gearing up the snowplough from the barn and escaping out of this nightmare over the Smokies, and disappearing, starting afresh…

_Damn it I'm fucking begging you. Just please… get away. RUN…_

As she stares out the window, every fibre in her body urges her to throw the window open and do it… She can't be here anymore, in this soul destroying limbo of her own. If he dies, could she bury him? Could she leave him behind, even when he was gone? The questions will give her no peace, and she is so hopelessly _tired_ of this. She doesn't know the answer, when suddenly she hears his voice again,

_I ain't lettin' you throw your whole life away caus you're tired! You don't think I'm tired? You don't think I want all this to be over?_

She wonders if this never-ending vigil is her penance for all the crimes she has committed, for all the hearts she's broken and lives she's taken. Kate has never been good at waiting, at being helpless. And she would have thought that being in trouble, in fear constantly would create a capacity to handle it. But it never gets any easier, the urge to run any less relentless. And she hears his voice again, now strangled with fury,

_Honey, I might never change but you're goddamn timeless! 'Caus as soon as we're out and you see the open road, your blood heats, you get scared, and you cut and run. _

He was right about her. It kills her to admit it, but he was right, and he'd known all along. She presses her hands to her face, and takes a deep breath. He's dying isn't he? Her breath quickens, and she can't do this. She is not this strong. _She has to get away…_

_So go… _The voices whisper in sugar coated tones,_ What you still doing here?_

"You know I can't leave," She cries out loud, "But it doesn't mean I don't _want_ to! Or that it's any easier to stay… to see him this way…!"

The voices don't return, and she sinks to the end of the bed… and her thoughts travel back over their time together. Over the _good_ times, memories she would fight to the death for. Sawyer in San Francisco looking exceeding proud of himself as he presented her with a snow cone, filling her hands with gemstones in a petrified forest, putting up with her endless fugitive talk, eating contraband burgers overlooking Monument Valley…

Kate believes the hardest thing in life to learn is what bridges to cross and what bridges to burn – and she realizes now, looking back over these memories, that if she is given the chance, if he makes it through this and comes back to her, she will finally cross those bridges with him. She has tried burning them too many times…

And it occurs to her that she has always tried to run from her memories, avoid going into them. She has bricked them over long ago… but now she is faced with the possibility of losing them, she suddenly finds herself reacting with horror to the idea. Because she suddenly realizes that for every memory of shame and despair, she has parallel memories of joy, of happiness which she cannot imagine losing. The way he had covered for her at the roadblock, bought the car she told him to even though she knew he hated it.

She suddenly doesn't _want_ to forget anymore. She has spent a lifetime in denial, wishing only to forget her past. Well now she _wants_ to remember. She wants to remember everything. Sawyer buying her underwear, sex in a broom closets, watching him out on the deck like a rain drenched magician summoning a storm for her…

She doesn't want to run anymore, but instead embrace every last detail of her memories, because they are the essential building blocks of who she is. She doesn't want to hide anymore. _She wants her memories._

Kate finally takes Sawyers hand, remembering the words she had spoken to him what seems an age ago, how she had hated him at the time. And as she repeats them now she means them with all her heart as emotion chokes her, stings her throat,

"_I want to run. _You'll never know how bad I want to, Sawyer. But the reason I stay, is because… _you never let me. _You make me stay, you make me face things." She stares down into his face, locked so far away from her as her voice finally breaks, _"You always have."_

Sometimes the littlest things are the hardest to take. She goes outside to work off the restless energy and enters the garden. From the back, the desolate beauty of this place hits her right between the eyes - it isn't so eerie now she is used to it. The dusty blue smoky mountains rise and fall, like an ocean of trees before her. In spite of what has happened at this place, Kate feels she could grow to love it. She even wonders if Sawyer makes it through if they could build upon these ruins, she has never seen a view this grand… it makes her feel small, like the storm. Small is good…

Grasping the cold broom in her hands, she brushes off the leaves from the back porch… then her eyes rest on the back door. There is a bundle of scraps of paper and water stained tissue paper which she kneels by curiously… and realizes this is where the few friends and family had laid flowers and mementos for what happened here. She picks up a tarnished photo frame of a tall, bean pole thin woman clad in a western shirt and chaps, her great cable of dirty blonde hair hanging down her shoulder – and resting his head against her other shoulder, gazing up at her with a great wide grin on his face, is Sawyer. _Or_ _James_, she thinks, James when he was six. And next to them, a tall man with a craggy yet kind face slings his arm over the corral fence.

Kate looks out to the windswept corral, the dust blowing in mini sandstorms across its paddocks and imagines Sawyer here with his parents, when this picture was taken. She wonders how long after it was that they died. Returning her gaze to the picture sadly, she turns it over to see there is writing on the faded wood.

Kate never forgets what she reads next.

In the coming hard months and years, she will always look back and remember the scrawled message on the back of a picture of two dead parents and a long grown boy. It seems everything has somehow lead her to this porch, to read this passage.

_Life is eternal, and love is immortal, and death is only a horizon; and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight._

It's like a sign that even if Sawyer dies, she will see him again. But her instinctive thoughts rebel against this with wild fear – its like fate is conspiring to take him from her by giving her these scribbled words of hope, that she could be okay even if he did die…

Well she couldn't. Suddenly the awful truth is clear as she backs down the battered porch steps dazedly, shaking her head furiously – she _wouldn't_ be okay. She would break, and she knows if this breaks her that she will never recover.

She hugs the picture to her chest tightly, as hot tears spill down her cheeks. She cries for the lost innocence of the little boy and the death of perhaps the only person who had ever loved him unconditionally. She cries because he _should not_ have ended up here. From the arms of that loving embrace he was torn, never to return, and wasn't that enough?

_If you pity me for what I did, what I became, you're even more stupid than the rest of them._

He's done things, things she can never imagine, of that she is sure. But how could this tiny little boy in the picture end up here, a bitter and damaged man, fighting for his life in a decaying building with her as his only hope, his last friend? It is so hopelessly wrong at the most primal levels that she is helpless to understand it.

Scrubbing the tears from her face, quickly regaining her steely composure she stands. But she can't bring herself to leave the picture outside in the cold. So holding it close, she re-enters through the living room window, and yes she thinks, sometimes it's the little things that are the very hardest to take.

* * *

"You have a choice, Sawyer." 

Ethan has returned. Sawyer turns in the snow, scared that he never would, that he would be left out here to wander this white world for eternity as punishment for his sins. He has long lost any feeling from his body. He hasn't tried talking in what seems like weeks, and now Ethan strides up, brushes snow from Sawyers shoulders briskly. Sawyer doesn't even have the strength left to stop him, and Ethan seems to delight in this fact. "I think you know what it is, don't you?"

"Enlighten me…" Sawyer's voice is cracked up badly, but belligerent as ever. This seems to amuse Ethan no end.

"You're a lot stronger than the Agents ever gave you credit for, I'll give you that. Mindlock usually lasts 48 hours. _You're_ still going a month in…!"

"I get a gold star…?"

Ethan laughs hard, snow catching on his pale cheeks, dancing on his eyelashes. "You get a _choice_ my friend. That's a whole lot better."

"I'll stick with the star…" Sawyer hates choices. And something tells him this ones gonna be a doozy…

"You've sought your death for a long time Sawyer." Ethan strides closer, a black shadow against the white, "Your choice is life… and death. But before you decide… consider this. What if I were to say, you could make up for everything you did? What if I were to tell you that there was a way _you could still save yourself?"_

Sawyer only looks to him in exhaustion. He has learned never to trust this guy, and he'll be damned if he's going to start now. But he is helpless but to ask the question, because _any_ end to this limbo will do him now.

"How…"

"Give in," Ethan whispers, "Just let go. Take the second option, and stop _fighting_ this."

"_What…?"_ Sawyer whispers.

"You heard me. Let go of life, and repay your debt to all those you have killed. You don't deserve a second chance. Unless…" Ethan's eyes glint, "You can give me a reason you should get one?"

_Some things you can't let go James. No matter how much you wanna… _

And suddenly, a girlish shout resounds through the snow. As Sawyer turns, he sees a pick jacket barrelling through the blizzard, and in moments Shannon has flung herself on him, is hugging him tight. Just to feel any kind of contact with another human brings Sawyers mind back from the brink, and he grips onto her tightly, wishing he could feel more of his _body_ –

"_Sticks --!" _He breathes in a rush, _"Sticks how'd you find me –"_

"_You're not the only one I found –!" _Her bright blue eyes dance wildly, and she drags Sawyer around to gaze through the snow, _"Sawyer look!"_

As Sawyer looks frantically, his head burns with electricity as the voices return his own words to his ears maliciously, _Mom, you'd be heartbroken if you could see me now. What I've become –_

Striding through the falling snow, Jenny stands silhouetted against the white. But Sawyer can't move. He is riveted in place as he sees his mother as she is now, older, lined, pale… but when she smiles, _he sees it is truly her. _

"Mom," He breathes in exhausted grief, _"Mom, I can't reach you…"_

"It's _okay_…" She calls, her voice twinkling like distant bells on the icy air, "I'm okay. _It's okay…"_

"It's not," Sawyer returns, and Christ he's losing it, and the tears are falling as though he were five again with skinned knees, "It'll _never_ be okay Mom, I failed you, _I shoulda stopped him --"_

"_Let it go James,"_ Jenny calls, and she is fading, the whole world is fading as Sawyer experiences that vertigo and knows in horror that he is leaving the snowstorm and his mother behind forever. But before everything goes dark, he hears, _"You never failed me baby bear."_

* * *

The night which falls on what she is certain will be Sawyer's final evening, is the point at which if she ever looks back on this in the future, Kate will say _'this is was my ultimate test'. _She had passed the stages of fear, anger, hope. Now this obsessive vigil by his side seems like it has become her world, all consuming, like the sweeping ranges of Shaconage are everything that ever was, or can be. She resiliently takes his temperature at four in the morning, only to find it immovable at 40, and she resigns herself to his passing. All her hope finally leaves her in the dark hours, and there is nothing to do but wait for the outcome, the only outcome there could ever be. She lies besides him and holds him gently in the dawning hours, and rests her hand over his heart, feeling the slow erratic pulse beneath his cool skin as Ana's words ring back to haunt her, 

_He has to save himself_

But he is going cold. The heat of the fever has burned through him quick and fast, if it ever was a fever at all, leaving him growing steadily cool to her touch. What if he no longer has the strength to save himself? Or worse, what if he no longer _wants_ to? He has always had a death wish, and she wonders if now he is being given the choice between life and death, if he will fight it…

As her hands rest on the small, yet undeniable bump on her stomach, she suddenly realizes if he dies, _he'll never know_. She never told him she was pregnant. He could pass away today, _tonight_, never knowing what he will miss… and suddenly it hits her.

The immensity of being pregnant, of knowing that within seven months, _seven_ _months_, that their child will be in this world knocks the wind from her. There is no pushing it to the back of her mind, forcing her mind onto matters at hand, because when everything hangs in the balance, there is nowhere to hide.

Their child is coming, and coupled with the fact that Sawyer may leave her behind to deal with it alone fills her with such betrayal, with such utter fury that suddenly she can barely breathe. Because she knows if he dies, she will not keep the baby. Even if he lives, she is still hopelessly uncertain as to whether they are the type of people who should be parents…

The rain is pounding down so hard it stings. Or it would have done if Sawyer could _feel_ a damn thing. The world is a haze of grotty black beachfront buildings and the hazed neon of a shrimp truck, and there is no mistaking this place. Sawyer has never forgotten it, and now that he is back here, he knows this is his final test, and the very last memory he will face.

He sees his car pulling up, squealing to a halt with wet breaks. Time is running out. Whatever he will decide, whatever way this nightmare will end, in life or death, will be over within these next seconds –

"Watch your final descent again… the point you became a murderer." Ethan is at his shoulder, "You'd do it all over again wouldn't you? Because I don't think you _cared_ that guy was innocent. It didn't matter, at that point. You were past reason… you would have killed him anyway wouldn't you Sawyer? Because you _needed_ to kill somebody. _Somebody_ had to pay..."

There it is. The god awful truth. As Sawyer watches himself stride from his car, reach into his jacket, somewhere deep inside something snaps. It may be true. He may not be able to change the past, but by god, he wouldn't stand by and watch it again. If it meant he was killing himself, then so be it. But he has to stop himself. Duckett was _innocent_ –

The world around him blurs and he suddenly feels like he has been shot from a cannon – and when he comes back to himself, he is standing in the pouring rain, soaked through to the bone, and he can feel the rain, it burns. He is solid, whole, and he is standing facing Duckett against the dumpster with a gun in his hand. He has taken control of his body, Ethan has finally forced his hand and goddamn it _he has_ _CONTROL_ -_-! _

In these seconds, Sawyer stares down Duckett, and he faces his past, his present and his future. This is his choice… to live or to die, to kill or be killed.

Ethan had asked him for a reason to give him a second chance, a reason he deserved a shot at another life. Weighted down by the millions of reasons that he deserves to die, Sawyer searches his soul in these fleeting seconds for that reasonto_ live_…

… and Kate's face rises up to greet him. Freckles climbing trees and grinning that goofy great smile, his own fucked up perfect angel. He has long believed her his reason to change, but as for his reason to _live_…?

Suddenly he is speaking. The words are leaving his mouth before he has ever processed them as he makes the hardest decision of his life.

"Get away from here," He whispers at Duckett, his hand shaking badly through the pouring rain – he is losing his control. The gun is rising against his will, and unsure how much longer he can maintain his fragile hold over his own body he cries, '_Run_…'

As Duckett turns and flees, Sawyer releases the gun into a spray of water on the pavement. Swiftly, he goes down with it, collapsing with exhaustion on the freezing boardwalk. The world is shifting in and out of focus. Black spots flicker over his eyesight, and now the test has passed, he swiftly loses all feeling in his body. His heart races as great shooting pains clench it – and he wonders if this is it. If this is the end he was searching for. But now it is here, as the blackness eats away at the last of his vision, clamps his chest and steals the last of his breath, he doesn't want to die – he had proven he was capable of change, _how had he failed the test?!_

Suddenly Ethan is standing over him, a flickering image now. Even as Sawyer fades away in the poring rain, he slings a parting shot --

"I did it – I showed you I can change – _what's happening to me--?!"_

"This isn't over," Ethan bites, but his voice seems faraway, as though he is already passing over for good, "They'll come for you in body or spirit – _Sawyer_ –" Ethan moves forth with a dark scowl of rage, _"You still have a choice – end it now, while you still can –"_

"I don't want to die –" Sawyer chokes, unable to draw any more breath, _"I don't want to die anymore –!"_

But Ethan vanishes, winking out in a shatter of smoke, leaving him alone, to pass away alone – As the pain shoots through his body with its final fire

_Kate I'm so sorry_

And as the paralysis takes hold of Sawyer, he can feel it working its numbing strength up the length of his torso, arms, chest –

_Kate I wanted to change for you_

His eyes want to close – and even though Ethan is gone, the voices stay strong,

_You waited your whole life to feel deaths embrace, so let go. Do what your mother never could, and let go James. Be kind to yourself, just this once…_

And as Sawyer casts his last looks around the steadily fading neverworld, he suddenly knows it is all over, he has failed, _he is done…_

_Kate I could have loved you_

* * *

At four in the morning of October 24th, Sawyer stops breathing. Kate had listened through the dawning hours as his breath had grown shallower and unbelievably laboured, and she knew she was losing him. The time was coming, there was nothing more for her to do but wait. 

Ana never returned. In a way, Kate was glad. This soul destroying vigil has been hers to shoulder, and hers alone, so she feels it only right that Sawyer's passing be a private thing, between them alone. They never needed anyone else.

In the previous twilight hours, Kate's mind reverted into what Sawyer had always called 'fugitive lockdown'. She shut down, and she made her plans. She would bury him in the shadows of the Great Smoky Mountains. She would take off in the snowplough and head out over the range until she could find a car. She would hit North Carolina and get an abortion and a new identity. She would continue on the run, never looking back, and make a new life for herself. Things would soon get back to normal – Kate could head to Seattle, look Claire up, and maybe they would help her find Garrett's wife.

So Kate has a plan. It is a sensible plan. A _good_ plan.

And it is a plan she knows if she follows through on will destroy her. Dharma won't need to play puppet master anymore – she will tear herself down for them. And as the distant dawn takes to the sky in a blaze of crimson, Kate gives up making plans. Plans are useless, now.

Now, she lies by his side, stretched out next to him on the bed. If he weren't so cold, she could delude herself into thinking this was just another night they were spending together, but the time has long passed where she could attempt to make herself believe that. Drifting between reality and scattered dreams, Kate wraps her arms around his waist and buries her head in his neck. She brings his calloused hand to rest on the rise of her stomach, brings her mouth to his ear so his hair tickles her nose.

"I don't think you can hear me anymore. But what I think doesn't matter. Maybe I need to tell you this before you're gone…"

_Life is eternal_

The pain in her chest is real, and it stabs her as she speaks every word. "I'm carrying something you gave me… I don't know if it's a blessing or a curse. It's probably as curse… but all I know is it's _our_ curse. We made it. _Together_." The tears sting her eyes, demanding to fall but she refuses – if this is her last act for him she _will_ be strong, "And you never _would_ let me run from anything… so don't let me start now, huh? Come home and meet your child, Sawyer. _Don't leave us…"_

She is monitoring every rise and fall of his chest, as every breath becomes the ever living beat of her own heart. So when he exhales and does not draw another, she raises her head questioningly, wondering if he has woken, if this is a _dream_ –

"Sawyer?" She murmurs, voice thick with lack of sleep, _"Sawyer…"_

_Love is immortal_

His mouth is ajar, and his chest is still. As time seems to slow, she pushes his hair back from his forehead in a dazed motion, feeling only deathly cold. There is no life in his face…

_Death is only a horizon_

Frantically she feels for a heart beat, a pulse, but she can't _find_ one – there's nothing, and it can't end this way, _not like this_ – her hands work at the buttons of his nightshirt as all rational though deserts her, as pure panic overwhelms her in boiling urgency. Her trembling fingers press to his wrists, his neck, pump over his heart in massaging circles and this isn't how it is supposed to _BE!_ She _stayed_, she overcame her urges and found he was worthy, that what they had was _worth staying and FIGHTING for –_

"_No!"_ She cries in a snatch of breath, "No, I stayed and I fought for you, I didn't run goddamn you I _stayed_ with you! Now you stay with me! Stay and _FIGHT_ with me, I need you, you _know_ that, you know I can't _do this without you –"_

But he isn't responding, no shivers, no breath, no warmth, _no_ _nothing_, and she is losing control, losing everything as she pumps his chest, knowing its over, knowing it but unable to _believe_ it – banging his chest she crushes her lips against his, breathing air into him as hard as she can, and God he tastes like rain and gun smoke, how can he _taste_ like that –

_And a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight_

Kneading his chest as her adrenaline deserts her, she refuses to give in. Pressing the length of her body over his, as though in one last embrace, she smashes her lips to his for one last try, driving her air into his lungs with all the breath she can muster, until she sees stars _and her head hums with the strain…_

But there is nothing… no vitals, no response.

Even in her crazed mindset, her cruel voice of rationality kicks in, telling her its over, she's lost him. _And it's your fault Katherine, _the voices whisper triumphantly, _You brought him here where no one could help him. You killed him Katherine._

"_No…"_ She breathes in a broken whisper, _"Sawyer, no…"_

* * *

**PLEASE REVIEW ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I NEED TO HEAR FROM YOU... **

Oh, how I'm gonna get flamed for this one. Tune back in next week to find out what happens folks! (And you know me – it can go any which way…!)


	36. Shadow Dancing

**Chapter 36**

**Shadow Dancing**

_Now cracks a noble heart,_

_Goodnight, sweet prince,_

_And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest._

-- Hamlet, William Shakespeare.

There are pleasures Kate has known in her life. The memories are underfoot now - hiking through the alpine forests of Iowa as a child near her home, making radio tapes with a boyfriend who was her world, eating snowcones in the freezing winter, standing out in the pouring rain watching a man she loved conjure a storm for her. Kate has known love. And because of that, Kate is broken.

Once, in the midst of all the recklessness, she had wished for better. As a child, she had small time expectations, but they meant the world to her. When she was old enough, she would marry Tom, maybe quit her job at the local K Mart when they had enough money for a wedding, and then buy a farm, someplace green, someplace remote where she could stand in the wilderness and feel small, dwarfed by the immensity of the world around her, sheltered by its vastness. Someplace she could call _home_.

When her mother brought Wayne home, Kate changed. Things went bad, and her wishes turned to those which could never be fulfilled – she longed for a normal family, for an upbringing which hadn't instilled in her such violent tendencies and such a hopeless desire to escape from herself. Yes… Kate had wished for better.

Wayne had crippled parts of her in ways she could barely comprehend. He had instilled inside her a hatred of herself, and an inherent mistrust of people. He had taken her innocence just as he had taken her freedom and any semblance of self belief she ever had that she would amount to anything. In their place, he had turned her into an expert liar, a cornered, trapped prisoner to witness his crimes against her mother.

So Kate had found her solace in her blue room. A place deep inside where she could never be harmed, where she locked her heart away so it could never be broken, never be tarnished by all that she bore witness to. When Tom had died, she had barricaded the doors of that room tight and thrown away the key – she was scared to open it because she was sure she would find the remnants of her heart irreversibly cracked, perilously close to shattering to dust.

It never healed. Can hearts ever recover from seeing loved ones taken? It is a question she refuses to consider, because Kate lives in practical, urgent times where she is not afforded the luxury of heartbreak, to suffer blows which may affect her senses, her actions – she has never allowed herself to break.

But she breaks now.

In the snow swept vastness of Shaconage's grounds, she has toiled since the sun rose, at the boundary where the powder coated sequoias meet a frozen lake. She had found this place weeks ago, when the vigil had grown too much and she had to escape for awhile. She had been awe struck by it's desolate beauty, as she had stood and looked out past the river which had flown, down the gently sloping hillside and out across the wild prairie land beyond. Her eyes had been drawn to where the sky met the prairie land on the horizon, hundreds of miles away… and she had felt that feeling of insignificance, of being small and sheltered which she had always longed for. She thought things could have been okay. That she had finally found her home in the very last place she had expected.

She believes if Sawyer could ever have appreciated beauty in a view, that he would have appreciated this. Either that, or he would have rolled his eyes and made a smartass comment – but he wouldn't have ruined it for her, because he would have known she got a kick out of seeing these things. Just the way he had put up with her endless excitement over Monument Valley.

The grave has nearly broken her back. The ground is frozen hard, but the physical action is what she craves. It does not register what she is digging for. Nothing registers anymore. Just the rhythmic motion of the shovel… her focus whittles down to this single action.

This is the sound of loneliness. And it is not just in the wind rustling through the dead leaves, or the hollow cry of faraway swallows. It transcends sound itself. It is in every whisper of her lone feet underfoot, every rasp of the shovel on unyielding earth. The loneliness bleeds in on all sides, knowing her feet will never fall into step with his again, that his slow, ever silky drawl will cease to fill the air. His broad arms will not shelter her, his dimples tease her, his lips caress her with all the expertise of a lifetimes worth of skill.

She has seen everybody who ever loved her die. She is cursed. First Tom, then Jack, now Sawyer. He had filled her heart with every emotion under the sun, for better or worse, and now he has left her, it is only the pain that remains. This all that is left now he is gone. A burned out home in a cold world of snow. She has nowhere to go, no one to run to now. No one will care if she fails now. If she takes off across the Smokies, if she falls along the way, no one will help her up. No one will mourn her passing.

He had stayed too long in her heart. She hates Sawyer for bringing her to this, this crippling state of surrender. She hates him with every fibre and tendon in her body, she loathes him until she fears the sheer force of that hatred will gain power enough to stop her heart. Because after everything he'd said, and all he'd promised, he had died.

It is always hardest being the one left behind, the one who has to pick up the shattered shards of their broken soul and continue. She can't do it again. She is not that strong anymore. He has stolen her strength and left her alone and broken in the snow, digging a grave in icy ground. Every shovel load chips away at the last remains of her shattered heart. To cope, she goes cold. Turns off, and lets her mind play with the notions of what he would say if he could see her now, up to her shoulders in dirt. And she sees his dimples, hears his laughter.

The unreal is so much more powerful than the real, because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Only ideas, beliefs, fantasies last. Stone crumbles, wood rots, people die – but things as fragile as a love, a memory, a dream, a legend… they can go on and on.

So Kate imagines him laughing over her. She doesn't count each and every load of dirt that she heaves from the grave, she doesn't feel the splinters in her hands or the knots of strain burning in her back. And she doesn't send her thoughts out with the swallows, away over the mountains and into the future, to plan her own destruction.

* * *

Waking from the mindlock, Sawyer is reminded of when he had been unceremoniously belched out of the gas pipe at the Staff and been hurled underwater. Stroking his way up from the blackest depths, where no sound or light could ever hope to penetrate all the way towards the shimmering surface, where the light danced overhead in dizzying patterns. The pressure hurts, pounds on his head, and the sense of suffocation, of drowning are all the same as Sawyer kicks towards the surface, towards the light he is uncertain he can ever reach… 

But the sense of slamming back into life, into consciousness hits him with all the power of a Mac truck. He jumps awake so hard he nearly inhales the blanket which is shrouding his face, and he coughs his burning lungs up, trying to breathe, trying not to pass right back out again…

Brushing the blanket from his face, Sawyer wakes to a faint smell of mildew and pine needles, an odd mix… and then, as his eyes blearily remember how to work, he discerns shapes. _Familiar_ shapes…

_Do you know where you are James? _

And as the voices whisper ever so softly at him, he knows. He's never dreamed of it like this before. It's always as he left it. Now, the paint is peeling from the walls, the windows are grimed with dirt, and the covers smell of damp. And this feels unnervingly _real_.

He looks around sitting upright reflexively, scowling and disorientated. This is supposed to be a dream. Weaving like a spurned alley cat, he crosses to the window… and for a moment, he forgets how to breathe.

Because he is looking out over a vista he has long forgotten. Pastel hued blue mountains sweeping from here to forever, dwarfing the pines and sequoias, dwarfing the _ranch_ itself. It strikes deepest fear and yet a strange kind of resolution in him – in the truest sense, it is like coming home.

His eyes fleet across the scene before him, throat working hard… when he sees a distant shadow. Against the powder coated ground near the old boundary, he swears it… and he could swear its Freckles. Can he reach her? Is this real, or is this a dream? He has no idea anymore…

"_Ethan…" _He tries to speak, but his throat is sore and dry as Ghandi's damn sandals. When Ethan doesn't materialize, Sawyer's pulse begins to race hard.

He moves through the house and doesn't look. At _anything_. He forces himself to focus on reaching the back door, not registering where he is, how his feet resound over the flags, how his body is weak and frail. Is this how he's doomed to spend his damn afterlife, wandering through this awful place? If this is another test, he doesn't know if he can face it. Not seeing Freckles, yet being unable to touch her, be with her…

It is bitterly cold out. But he is amazed he can feel it, everything seems so real… and as he steps out onto the rickety porch, he sights a familiar form through the distant haze of falling snow which kisses his cheeks. A figure he has craved long and hard, which in his darkest hours, he had given up on forever.

As he moves forth on auto pilot, he begins to shuffle faster. He can't run, his damn limbs won't allow it – but he prides himself on shuffling pretty damn well for a guy who was dead moments ago. And as the snow parts, and a thin metallic whickering drifts through the air, he slows to a stunned stop. He can barely draw breath enough to breathe. Because what he sees wrenches his heart so badly he feels like he's going to pass right back out.

Freckles is clutching a shovel, and beating in the edges of a freshly dug grave. He gets the shivers suddenly, dancing up his spine in the snow.

"I was kidding about that six by four, y'know Freckles…" He breathes in a dry voice, his usual swagger a mere shadow. Disorientated Kate turns, as though responding to a whisper on the wind. Her eyes fleet in his direction, squinting bewildered through the snow… and slowly, she stops beating down the earth. She just… stops.

Kate's strength seems to desert her completely as she slowly turns to face him, and the raw grief on her face hits him so hard. Because he'd never allowed himself to expect it, never believed in a million years that he could ever have such an effect on her

_It'll be a snowy day in Hell when Freckles cries over your sorry ass. _

And what do you know… they'd reached Hell on earth, and the Lord thought he'd throw on down some snow. Miracles were for idiots and Jack, Sawyer always believed… but right now, _in this moment_, he thinks different. Right now, his own gorgeous miracle is standing right before him through the snow covered in mud and brandishing a shovel.

She walks up to him as though the air around them has grown to almost syrupy thickness, slowing down time and making swift movement impossible. Her eyes are wildly mistrusting, hands clenched at her sides as though she is giving composure one last stab… Sawyer is just about to approach when she brings her hand up with lightning speed – and he wheels back in shock as something hard and heavy hits his chest, winding him and sending a flower of wonderful _new_ pain through him.

"Did you just throw a --" He jerks back around to her, "Did you just throw a _rock_ at me?! Jesus Christ, _the hell are you doin'?!" _

Her hands shoot up and clap over her mouth, eyes widening in shock. Through her fingers she whispers like a chastened five year old, "I… I thought you were a ghost."

He picks up the offending rock indignantly and blazes, "I look like _Casper_ to you?!"

Something breaks in Kate on his words. Emotions bursts over her face like ripples over a millpond, and blindly she runs to him. His arms envelope her, and she grips him close like an addict dying for a fix, crushing her lips on his in a breathless kiss. When she pulls back, his hands frame her face as he palms the tears from her cheeks, tears which leave bright white streaks in the dirt on her cheeks. She presses her face into his hands, not daring to trust her eyes, and he cups her cheeks reverently.

She falls apart under his gaze. She just goes to pieces. Smothers his face with kisses until she can't breathe. Words wont come. He sinks to the porch, strength failing him and she goes down with him, a tangle of arms as she finally finds a cracked voice,

"I thought you'd left me behind," She whispers, the force of the memories hitting her so hard, "You weren't _breathing_, your _heart_ Sawyer, _your heart had stopped --" _

Moving in close Sawyer silences her with his lips, wincing in remembrance as he grips her wrists gently, rests them beneath his shirt on his chest, over his heart, _his racing heart_, _"It's beating now..."_

"_I can feel it…!" _Kate laughs against his lips, as hysteria tints her voice -- because he is _warm_. Just the sheer fact of it winds Kate, drives into her stomach like a low kick, and she gasps against his mouth. However this has happened, however he has returned, she doesn't care. All that matters is the heat beneath her hands, the taste of him on her lips, the exhausted sparkle in his eyes. And as the urgency builds behind their kisses, his arms wrap about her waist, squeeze her tight – she understands his intention, and it is one Kate can get behind.

Their arms entangle, fingers knot, mouths smack. As they fumble up the stairs, Kate's mind flits to the last time she had climbed them with him, the state he had been in, and her heart fills with such immense, painful gratitude. It flares out from her heart until it fills every ounce of blood in her body, burning her up. And as they clatter down the upstairs hall, she presses her mouth to his, willing him to close his eyes, not to see the site of his mothers passing. Instead she pulls him close for a deep, drugging kiss.

As they fall to the bed where countless hours and tears have been spent, she is dragging his shirt off, relishing the feel of his body heat beneath her, tracing the contours of him with urgent, reverent motions. He hungrily draws her close, crushing onto her mouth, working her wide open as she responds with muffled noises of encouragement. They rock with intense fierceness as Kate meets his tongue with hers, tasting every bit of him, going deeper, searching further, until Sawyer releases a muffled sob. His other hand cups the back of her head, pulling her closer for more and in return her hands fist in his hair.

Eyes the bright, startled blue of faded jeans. She knots her fingers through his. Breath coming hot and fast. Bodies trembling with anticipation, hands wanting to be everywhere, followed fast by lips which refuse to linger in any one place. Sawyer trails a line of breathless kisses down her neckline, down her breastbone, and she feels hot tears scald her cheeks beneath his touch, a touch she had feared she would never shiver beneath again.

Looping her arms beneath his, Kate tries to draw him up to her, but he refuses to follow her commands. Instead, he delicately unzips her jeans, runs them down and onto the floor. The fact that his touch travelling up her legs sends shudders through her stokes the ever growing fire in him. He administers flutters of kisses around her navel, feeling her stomach muscles tense in pleasure beneath his lips, her hands working through his hair in veiled need. He knew she would never beg him – in this respect, they would compete until the last. Her hips are rising to his, but he presses his hand and presses them to the mattress. They have waited too long for these moments to be rushed…

Worrying her neck with his lips as they finally rid themselves of the last of their clothes, Sawyer finally allows Kate to draw him up to her, and with exhausted, expert slowness, he begins to move inside her. She brings her legs up and around him, wraps her arms around his neck in what he knows is an attempt to increase the pace, but he rests his elbows either side of her head, steadying them, fighting against her efforts…

Her breath is ragged, eyes glazed with craving which betrays the love she has never said… and face a few inches away as he works over her, Sawyer seems to see it. Sweeping down, he envelopes her mouth with his in a kiss which draws all her last breath and resistance from her as he begins to thrust harder. She sucks in a sharp breath against his mouth as the mattress creaks with a quickening beat, with the combined race of their hearts…

And as the desire grows unbearable he pulls back from her, they lock eyes... and she suddenly feels like she will never be closer to him than in the moments before they take each other to climax, to infinity. Its like a religious experience, and when the moment of release makes her implode inside and shatters the world into diamonds of light, she sinks into him, feels him shift up to cushion her fall, and the wondrous sense of release fills every ounce of her, sends her into that other place, into sensory overload. The shimmering bliss of Sawyer within, the grief gushing up from the depths of her soul, the need she sees in those sea blue eyes, the pain of it, of her whole life, it all howls in her mind, flaming through her body in a concrete wall of sensation. She crashes into it, lets it break her at its heart-stopping peak…

Breaking through she soars, as white noise pounds through the world, eradicating everything in a white flare of heat… and for the briefest moments, for just the faintest flicker of infinity, she is free.

As Kate comes back to herself, it is like he has awakened her from a long, terrible nightmare. Because deepest gratitude is racing through her, _for_ _everything_, for the sheer fact that his chest is rising and falling beneath her, his breath rushed and damp on her shoulder, his eyes drugged with rare, precious bliss. She has never achieved such release with anybody else, and she now knows, she never wants to. He is everything to her, and she can admit that now.

* * *

As Kate finishes dressing, she muses over Sawyer's recovery. Its too soon to tell if he has truly beaten the illness… even during their love-making, she had felt the tremble in his arms, felt the exertion in him which was not fully desire, but deepest exhaustion. And as she pulls on her tee shirt, she glances outside at the winter scene, wondering what will come next… and if he will reveal to her any more of what happened to him here. 

The mahogany bathroom door creaks open in a whoosh of shower steam, and in his towel, Sawyer grabs his pants from the floor. But Kate shakes her head, motions to the dresser. "Those are filthy. Wear those."

He looks to the dresser to see a pile of his clothes, washed and (not so neatly) folded. He picks them up with an expression of amusement, "You _washed_ my clothes?"

"I washed every item of clothing we _own,"_ She sighs, throwing a tee shirt to him which he catches with a surprised snatch, "And I cleaned this place from top to bottom. There were leaves, and --" She bites back the words _'smoke marks', _"—and I swear there were a whole family of raccoons under your kitchen. There's not a lot to do here, and I get antsy pretty easy. It's been nearly a month."

He looks to her with playfully slitted eyes, his smile softening a little. She returns it, unsure how to read him suddenly, why this should mean anything to him. He raises his eyebrows in a slow arch as he pulls lint from his shirt thoughtfully, and his next words stun her.

"Why didn't you run Freckles?"

She looks to him, amazed that he had been able to read her that well, that he could have discerned such a private desire from her without her ever knowing. When did they ever grow that tuned into one another?

His gaze is still averted, tone low with a forced casualness, "We both know you ain't the type for washing pants and digging holes in the snow, though I'm sure you gotta kick outta chasing raccoons with a rolling pin. So…" His voice shifts slightly, and she knows its coming, "If you thought I'd turned my toes up…" He finally meets her eyes, "Why'd you stick around?"

So many reasons flash through her mind that she doesn't know which one to run with first… love is only the first because it seems that every time she looks at Sawyer lately she is flooded with the emotion. She had sworn she would tell him when he woke, that she would be honest with him about her reasons, her feelings. Her past, her love for him in the present, and the baby which haunts their future…

But that was in the darkness, in the night time when he was slipping away from her minute by minute. It was easy to promise him the world when he was gradually slipping from it. But now, in the cold light of day it is undeniable that all of their previous baggage has resurfaced…

So all that is left is this infuriating dance, this shadow dancing around all that is meaningful and true in their lives. Dancing around the subjects, afraid to step into the shadows and venture into the dark places… and she is weak. Maybe tomorrow, after she has slept and regained her strength, she will find the courage to be honest with him. But for now, this shadow dancing is safe – and if there's one thing she needs badly right now, it is to feel upon _some kind_ of safe ground.

"Because we're in this together," She throws him a jumper, and he catches it awkwardly, caught up in trying to read her expression. "And right now, you're the only one I trust."

Sawyer doesn't look like this is what he'd hoped to hear, but some part of him appears satisfied that he has gained her trust enough to stop her running away. As she passes behind him to use the shower, he wipes off the steamed mirror and gives himself a skeptical once over. His face is still pale, dark circles beneath his eyes.

Kate catches his gaze in the mirror and she squeezes his shoulder, "You look good."

"God love you for a liar." He sighs, and is surprised to feel the towel swiftly yanked from his waist. He turns to Kate as she smiles up at him, and leads him towards the shower.

* * *

"I can't believe you used all the hot water." Playful voices drift from the staircase, as Kate and Sawyer descend. 

"Look cupcake, it ain't my fault you didn't chop no firewood for a _month_. I guess you'da liked me to do it from my coma for you --?" She shoves him playfully, and he deliberately goes easy on her, just glad to be back with her… but it's impossible to fully embrace being alive when he looks around and is confronted with the scene where so much death had occurred. He has tried blanking out where he is, and he can _do_ it when he is wrapped up in Kate, thrusting or kissing or bantering… but as they descend the stairs, he feels like cold hands are slowly tightening their grip on his heart. It just blows his _mind_ to be back here again…

He doesn't realise he has paused in the hallway and Kate is looking back at him in thinly veiled concern until he hears her say, "Are you okay?"

Blinking a little, he clears his throat and nods, moving to go into the living room – when Kate is suddenly barring the way. He looks down to her questioningly – her eyes probe up and into him. "Why don't you come get something to eat huh?"

"Move," He says softly, immediately seeing through her ploy. Looking defeated somehow, she takes his hands.

"Are you sure?"

He only looks down to her, and how the hell is he supposed to answer that?! He doesn't know what she's trying to protect him from. He only squeezes her hands tighter and steeling himself, moves past her into the white sun streaked living room.

Time has frozen in here. In his memories, this room had been foggy, out of focus almost as his memory of it had diminished. But right here, with the cold winter light pouring in, everything is crystal clear. Everything from the scuffed brown couches down to the silverware laid out on the dining table, the battered TV which looks like it should be in a museum, the faded red and yellow woollen rug on the bare floorboards… and his eyes travel to the mantel, where they freeze.

From what feels a world away he hears Kate approach behind him, but hang back, perhaps unsure how he will react. But he is too mind blown to be able to process her right now. Because as he moves towards the mantel in shock, he extends his hands, and feels the smooth foil of the _'Happy Birthday'_ banner in his hands. A lump rises in his throat. His vision doubles, and with a soft tug, he pulls it from the wall. It drifts down easily, and rests like lightest silk in his hands.

Sawyer turns back to Kate, holding it in his hands like he hasn't a clue what to do with it. Her heart thuds dully in her chest for him, wanting to just go and take it from him, take all the pain away. But she knows she can't.

His throat is working, like he is desperately trying to force something down, get a grip, and his voice wavers as he tries for humor and fails miserably, "Hate to break it to ya Freckles… but it ain't my birthday 'til March."

She tilts her head at him, biting on a sad smile, and he turns and drops the banner into the unlit fire grate. She only watches, wanting to stop him, somehow believing that he should not burn it, that it survived one fire already… and Sawyer turns to see the faded presents.

She watches him kneel to inspect them with a forced detachment, eyes burning, jaw clenched, and to her frustration, he is still putting on a front, _still_ _joking_, "You got me presents 'n all? Ain't I the lucky guy…!" He shakes one, and cocks his head. "Scrabble?"

He pulls the paper off, and he is right – a vintage scrabble set, with a psychedelic 70's print on the front. He smirks down at it bitterly, casts it aside. Then his eyes fall upon a larger package, its faded blue paper patchy and thin in places. Kate watches his eyes fill with pain which he immediately reigns in, sees the way his shoulders work, the twitch in his jaw which warns of his rising strain.

"Leave them," She breathes, unable to watch this, "Haven't you come far enough today? Why can't you just leave them --"

But he isn't hearing her, and the rustling of paper fills the air. She closes her eyes, shaking her head as he reveals a gleaming bicycle, small enough for a six year old, dancing with bright orange rust. A hysterical laugh bubbles up from his lips against his wishes and he sighs in a dangerously thin voice, "Hell Freckles, you got crazy taste in gifts… I tell ya, next time, _just subscribe me to playboy and be done with it -"_

"Stop it," Her voice thrums with pain for him, _"Sawyer, put it down."_

But his eyes have moved beyond the bicycle, and rest on the floor. On a gift tag… and Kate suddenly feels sick. This was a terrible idea, why hadn't she gotten _rid_ of these things when she had the chance?

"Baby Bear, our big _strong_ boy…!" He reads in a choked, infuriatingly merry voice, "Happy 6th Birthday. Lots of love and monster hugs, Momma and Daddy."

His hand is suddenly shaking, and that lump in his throat stings and grows into a fucking roadblock in seconds. He shakes the tag at Kate, as though still deluding himself that she is the source of all this, as though trying to continue the joke – but his chin is shaking. Shaking bad, and his eyes are stinging, filling, his vision swimming behind their ocean of tears of grief, "Monster hugs," He whistles in a rush of breath, smiling wide in pain, _"Ain't never gonna get another one a those."_

And to Kate's horror, he presses his hands to his face. She watches in pain as he comes apart before her very eyes – first his breath quickens into rushed pants, his brow creases, and then a strangled sob breaks from him.

She rushes to him but his hand shoots up, palm splays at her in a last pitiful gesture of protection. She stares at him in shock, deeply hurt by this refusal – but under her gaze, he disintegrates. Face crumpling he holds his arms out for her, like a child who has lost its way, and she pulls him close. Murmuring into his neck, stupid things, _it'll be okay, I'll help you, I'm here. _But he is crying, and it scares the hell out of her because of his utter loss of control. This is the man who had bamboo shoots shoved under his nails and laughed while it was happening, the man who had been stabbed, shot, and nearly drowned. And so this scares her worse than anything which has ever happened to them, because as she rocks with him, the sobs which break out of him are wild, uncontrollable bursts of utter grief, a timeless, ageless grief which can never heal.

She feels him tensing unbelievably, fighting with himself, straining hard to _stop this_ – but she pulls back from him, gripping him tight. He stares back through lashes soaked with tears, his jaw working hard, he sounds asthmatic as his breath whooshes in, _out_, and she cups his face breathing, "Don't fight it. Don't hold it in, _don't shut me out –"_

"In what part of your _stupid_ head did you ever think this was a good idea?" He bites, and she suddenly has the awful feeling he's not talking to her – he's talking to _himself_. He pulls away from her grip, and is walking out the door. She follows him in a daze as he stalks down the cool hall, footsteps ringing, and she cries,

"What?! _You_ suggested it!"

"I must have been out of my mind..." He is reaching above the doorframe of the front door and finds a key which he rattles in the lock, _"This is the last place in the world I wanna be –"_

He pushes the door open and a blast of cold air and snow hit them as he flings the screen door open. As he pounds down into the snow she runs after him, blood racing through her, "And go where? In case you forgot, _we're broke_ – Sawyer wait – _Sawyer!"_

As he staggers towards the car he shoots disbelieving looks behind him, like the house is gaining on him and will swallow him whole at any second. As heaves the mounds of snow from the bonnet of the car, Kate desperately tries to keep her cool but his manner scares her badly, "You can barely stand and you think your fit to be on the road – Sawyer wake up! _We can't leave – the snow_ – _Sawyer_ _STOP_ –"

She grips him as he tries to fumble the car key into the dodge and he turns on her with those assessing, _'fuck you'_ eyes that are not even close to thawing around the edges.

"I _know_ what happened to you okay, I _know_ this is hell, but you need to stop – _and think about this._ Okay? It's minus ten out here. The snow's not going to let up. We have no money, nowhere else to _go… we have to stay here." _

He looks betrayed by her, and she feels he has every right to be. "Go back in." He growls, "Knock yourself out. You turn around and this cars gonna be heading back towards Nashville. I ain't staying."

"Sawyer, be _reasonable –"_ She shakes her head as he turns back to the car, wearily pulling the snow from the bonnet, "Think about all we said, now Dharma have the cops, its safer to be out here. It's just for a little while, just till the heat dies down again – you can do this, I'm _with_ you –"

"I don't know how can you ask me this!" He spins in cornered fury, "How'd you like to have a lil camp-out on the crater where _your_ house used to be? I'm guessing you'd love that. But this is different, right? Caus this is me, not you."

She grits her jaw, taking this on the chin. "I'm asking because we have no other choice." Her voice grows cold, "There's nowhere to go. Cars out of gas. Nearest amenities are an hours drive in all directions –"

"Then we'll head up over the Smokies," He retorts stubbornly, "Head out towards North Carolina, 'cross the national park. Its secluded, we could be there in three, maybe four days _max_ –"

Kate sighs, dangerously close to loosing her temper, "You're in no condition to go hiking, you're still sick. And you really think I could go hiking through mountains in my state? _Think about it –"_

He turns to her slowly, and then something seems to occur to him. _"What_ state?"

Thrown, she shakes her head, _"What?"_

"What state are you in?"

Eyes widening, she feels a crimson flush bloom through her cheeks. Backtracking quickly, she averts her eyes. "I've been sick since you've been out. Still got a cold."

But he is staring down at her uncertainly, like he knows her better. And her blood slows from its frantic throbbing when she sees he is not moving back towards the car. Meeting his gaze through the snow, she takes his hands. "When we're both feeling better, we can maybe hike back towards Knoxville, get some gas. But until then, we have to stay. _Okay…?"_

Sawyer is staring back at the house, faraway from her, and gives it one last try. "There's no food. Everything here went outta date, oh, lets see – _thirty years ago?"_

"I stocked up in town," Kate breathes, finally allowing herself to believe she may actually have diffused this situation, "We're good."

His eyes flicker back to her, and he takes her in a long moment, before, "Are we?"

"Yes." She kisses his lips softly, "Just so long as your on the mend." And after a moment where she is unsure which way he will go, he awkwardly wraps his broad arms around her. But there is not the usual fierceness in his bear hug, and she breathes into his neck, "I promise it'll be okay. I won't let anything happen to you, I swear."

Finally, his arms tighten around her and the last of his defiant energy slips away from him. And he sighs into her mess of hair, "If only the buck stopped with you, Florence."

* * *

After their exchange, Sawyer goes to bed. Maybe the events of the past month have finally caught up with him, but inside, Kate is glad. He is in danger of overdoing it, so when he voluntarily takes to bed, she piles Sawyer's old gifts into a sack, and sets her attention on getting the battered old TV set to work. She loves challenges and as she sits on the floor with a load of parts strewn around her, she flicks the switch for the hundredth time – and finally a crackling black and white picture flickers on in a haze of static. 

Laughing triumphantly, she stares at her handiwork in pride. It is a stupid, inconsequential thing, in the greater scheme of things. But it proves to her that she can still make something work if she needs to. She had been scared that over this month of isolation, that her mind was slowly softening, losing its edge. Somehow, this makes her feel better about it.

She hears a creak of the kitchen door, and wrapping the oily wrench she was using in a rag, she moves into the brightly lit kitchen. Her hand tightens around the wrench when she sees the back porch door open – but then loosens, when she sees that the kettle is still steaming, and the empty milk container is tossed on the side. Rolling her eyes and cursing softly, she exits outside to see Sawyer is drinking black coffee and looking out at the empty as the snow falls softly. He meets her gaze, and gives her a little smile. It may be small, but she is relieved to see it is real.

"You drank all the damn milk." He sighs, and _she'd known he'd say that. _A smile lights her face as she remembers how she'd actually longed to hear him make that comment, and she wraps her arms around his waist. Puzzled at her not throwing him a one-liner back, Sawyer holds her and they watch the blanket of snow glittering beneath the fading winters light.

"Always though I'd bring my girlfriend home to meet the folks one day." He says, in a tone which is more reserved than she has heard him use before, almost like the sleep gave him some of his strength back. "Yup. Even at six years old. Hell, even then I was a fast mover." Off Kate's look, he cocks his head. "What?"

She thinks a moment, then crinkles her nose curiously. "I'm your girlfriend…?"

"Well you're not my boyfriend."

"It just seems weird to hear it. Put like that I mean." Afraid she's hurt his feelings, she backtracks, "It just seems so… _young_."

He rolls his eyes, drawling with an incredulous smile, "We ain't exactly incontinent dribbling old timers _yet_ Freckles."

Feeling she is rapidly digging a hole for herself, but she is unable to resist, "I know. Well I don't know about you. You dribble in your sleep."

Outraged he looks to her, "I do NOT! You want me to give you a rundown of _your_ nightly activities little Miss Snorer? Dribble in my sleep, _of all the…"_

She cuts him off by burrowing her head into his neck, as he continues the pretence of annoyance a little longer for good measure. Her eyes slowly follow his outwards… "We could come back here one day. Once the heat's died down. Rebuild it. Start over."

She feels him tense slightly beneath her, his words curt. "Can't rebuild nothing. Foundations here are bad."

"There aren't many places in the world where you belong." She says softly, "Where you can feel close to the people that've left you behind. I know that… and I think this is your place. For better or worse…" She turns him gently to face the mountains. "I mean look at this place. Look at how it is right now, really _look_. It's beautiful, Sawyer. See those swallows in that tree? They'll have chicks by this time next month. Then they'll fly away for the winter. To Africa…"

"See?" Sawyer sighs, "Even the damn birds don't stay here longer than they gotta."

Suddenly footsteps ring out from inside, and they look to one another uncertainly. "Where's the gun?" Sawyer hisses, and Kate looks up anxiously.

"_It's inside – I –"_

He grips the shovel which she had discarded earlier and hefts it in his hands. "Stay close," He breathes, and they move inside slowly. The shadows are stark in the kitchen as they pass the basement hatch, the laundry room, the kitchen table… Kate motions to the living room, the wrench in hand, and he nods in agreement.

They inch up the hall, as the footsteps are joined by a soft thumping in the living room… bracing himself, Sawyer spins into the room _and brings the shovel around with a WHACK – _

"What the hell are you doing?" A smug voice chirps, and Sawyer sighs in annoyance, letting the shovel clatter from his hands.

"What the am _I _doing?" He echoes incredulously_, "What are you doing in my living room Sticks?"_

Shannon rolls her eyes, folds her arms. "Wanted to check you woke up dumbass. I'm starting to wonder why I even care."

"It's a good question." Sawyer bites as Kate looks around the door in disbelief, and he motions her to Shannon. "You see her right?"

"Shannon?" Kate says in shock.

"Hey." Shannon flicks her hair boredly.

"Are you –"

"A ghost? I don't know, I guess so." Shannon sighs.

"Enough of the howdy-doodies, what the hell do you want?!" Sawyer sinks to a couch and Shannon gives him one of her best glares.

"You're looking for somebody, and I think I can help."

"You're here to help us?" Kate's eyebrows arch in disbelief.

Shannon shrugs casually, as though she really couldn't care less. "You're looking for the wife of that loser scientist who help you out, right?"

"You been watching us all this time?!" Kate is stunned.

"Shut your mouth," Sawyer's eyes flash dangerously at Shannon, "Man wasn't no loser."

Shannon senses it is maybe better not to bait Sawyer on this, so settles for rolling her eyes and continuing, "Well I can do it. I can find his wife for you!"

Sawyer laughs dismissively, shaking his head, "And just how in hell you gonna do that Tinkerbell? Case you forgot, _you're in Neverland!"_

Shannon takes a heavy sigh like he is simply the most idiotic man she has ever had to deal with, "You said she was married, right? Well my stepmom, she owns this massive wedding outfit –"

Sawyer looks to Kate incredulously, "Are you listening to this?" To Shannon, "Just get out my house!"

Helpless to rise to his jibes, Shannon blazes, "Shut up Sawyer! You need my help as much as I need yours –"

With tired patience Kate intervenes as though parting two squabbling children, "How does your stepmom owning a wedding outfit _help_ us Shannon?"

Biting down her undeniable flood of comebacks she has been storing up for Sawyer, Shannon turns to Kate in a massive show of self restraint and elaborates, "Well if this crazy scientist of yours was married to her, there'll be a proof of it somewhere in the marriage records. My mom has access to the full system. I could pull up names, family, last known addresses, _the lot –"_

"I don't buy it." Sawyer sighs grouchily.

"Sawyer!" Kate chastises him.

"Come on Kate!" Sawyer gestures at Shannon, "This is the gal who gave herself a pedicure an hour after our damn _plane_ fell out the sky. Ain't no way in hell she can handle this!"

And then Shannon does something neither of them expects. She strides right up to Sawyer to his surprise, and she kneels in front of him. He looks down at her like she's lost her mind, but Shannon stares up at him straight, unflinching – and she is suddenly raw. Her wide blue eyes seem almost childlike as she says,

"_I need you to believe in me._ That's why I'm still here. Sayid didn't believe in me… he said he did… but… I guess he lied. And that's why I can't move on…" Her eyes mist over, as though this is causing her pain. And when she speaks again, her voice is thick with emotion. "I _need_ you to believe in me. Nobody does. _Please_. I can _do_ this…"

Sawyer exchanges a helpless look with Kate, who kneels by Shannon. This close up, it is obvious Shannon is fading. And Kate breathes, "If you can help us Shannon, will you be free?"

Shannon meets Kate's eyes, and Kate suddenly feels a flare of pity for the apparition before her. Her life had been ended under circumstances Kate could barely comprehend. She couldn't have been more than twenty five when she died. And after coming so close to losing Sawyer, she understands the utter finality of death with a new passion.

"Yes," Shannon replies, as two dime sized tears drop down her pale cheeks. Kate wishes she could hug her, tell her everything would be okay… and she meets Sawyer's eyes finally, knowing that Shannon appeared to him for a reason, and that he has to be the one to tell her.

"Then do it." Sawyer mutters softly, "Go on and try if you think it'll work. Don't say I didn't warn you."

"_Thanks…"_ An almighty beam lights Shannon's face, and she laughs, "I won't let you guys down. Hang tight. I'll be as quick as I can."

And with that, it is like she was never there. Sawyer looks to Kate uncertainly, and she merely smiles at him, strokes his face. She suddenly feels ridiculously proud of him – because it would have been the easiest thing in the world for him to shoot Shannon down, to reject her. But he hadn't, and she suddenly realizes he is changing. Right before her eyes, in the smallest of fractions. The Sawyer that had gone into the mindlock would never have humoured Shannon, she thinks. She wonders if Sawyer has ever humoured anybody in his life.

* * *

As Kate pulls together a meal of pasta and tinned bolognaise from their supplies, she goes to call Sawyer from the living room only to find he is not there, and the front door is ajar. Dragging the nearest coat on she finds (his green duffel coat) she pads out into the snow and follows his tracks around to the barn, where she finds the large doors have been rolled back and a clanking sound is drifting from inside. Entering the airy barn, she inquisitively traverses the snow plough, and finds Sawyer under the bonnet, fixing something. 

"Isn't it a little soon for you to be out here?" She hates herself for preaching, but can't deny her concern. He looks up, refusing to give into the tiredness.

"This thing's still got gas – I need to get into town. Gotta meet somebody –"

"Is this about your accounts?" She watches his hands work dexterously around a wrench. Kate remembers her fathers hands. Her _real_ fathers hands. Lined and calloused from a lifetimes hard grafting in the military, rugged with ridged nails and deep lines from hard graft. Sawyer's hands are the same.

"Yeah. Made a few calls, managed to shift what I can around." He breathes, his words exhaled in white smoke.

"But what if they've frozen them Sawyer? If those cops were suspicious of you, there's no telling what they might do." For some reason, he averts her eyes and she suddenly knows whatever he has in mind could be dangerous… she leans on the snow plough, watching him closely. "I'm coming with you."

"You're not coming with me." He says in a soft voice, so unlike his own bravado laden tone that she actually thinks twice about contradicting him.

"There's no way you're driving a _snow plough_ Sawyer, you've only been conscious a couple of hours." But as he goes about his business, she realizes nothing she can say will change his mind on this. And it feels like being shut out, yet again. "You know what they say about driving heavy machinery if you're sick? Huh? You've been in a coma for a month!"

But he is closing the bonnet, kicking aside his tools with a set look of sad determination on his face. "I can't tell you why, but these people I'm meeting get spooked real easy. They see me coming with a face they don't know, they're liable to get spooked. With _guns_."

She watches as he clambers up into the drivers seat, shivering a little, and deliberately moves so he can't close the door. "I want to do this straight. No breaking the law."

He shoots her a look which is plainly _are you serious? _And when she only stares back with that faint look of concern, he sighs, "Don't you think we're a little outside the realms of the law?"

"We can't afford to slip up here," Kate's eyes spear his, "We've been given a new chance at another life Sawyer. We have to try and play it straight."

She waits for his arguments, his stubborn insistences that they must take any lead they can get… and so she is thrown when he says, "Okay. Whatever you want…"

He brushes a kiss over the tip of her nose and she watches him move around the snow ploughs cramped cabin, still anxious about their earlier argument over staying here. He has been uncharacteristically withdrawn ever since, and his suspiciously easy acceptance of her demands only unsettles her further.

"Hey." She grips his strong arm through the window and he pauses, deliberately avoiding her glance. She stares up at him until he gets the message and grudgingly meets her gaze. "We _are_ okay, right?"

Slowly his eyes thaw, and twinkle tiredly at her. She reasons he must just be tired, that's all it is. Because he brings his lips to hers and presses a lingering kiss there which answers her question wordlessly.

So she watches the snow plough churn away up the drive, spewing a veil of powdery snow in its wake, and wonders for the hundredth time if Sawyer is physically fit enough to be going it alone. But she knows she could never have stopped him, and that to have tried would only have caused another argument.

Night falls, and she begins to worry. And when the sound of an engine finally pulls into the drive, she is out of bed in seconds, fully dressed and fleeting down the stairs. Putting on her best face of indifference, she casually exits the house and makes her way to the barn –

Which she finds locked up tight, with no trace of the snow plough anywhere. She looks around in confusion. Over the years, Kate's sensory perceptions had grown incredibly accurate, and she could have sworn she'd heard an engine…

With a mental shrug, she trundles back inside pondering this little mystery. Upon sealing the front door, she moves back towards the stairs, when she feels a cold breeze lick over her feet. Is it her imagination, or is it coming from the living room…?

Padding up to the doorway and stifling a yawn, she enters –

To find the French window is wide open.

She stares at it a moment, as though just by looking at it will give her the answer as to how it miraculously opened itself. Frowning, she moves over to close it, when her feet slide on the bare wood floor. Looking down, snowy footprints are melting on the floor, have been crunched across the carpet. And as she realizes this, a muffled _thump_ drifts from the kitchen, and she stalks towards it uneasily, calling;

"Shannon, are you there? _Did you find her --?"_

What happens next happens in split seconds. She rounds the corner into the bright streaming light of the kitchen, and comes face to face with Sawyers body lying face down on the floor. Blood trickles from his temple.

And before she can scream, arms encircle her from behind. As she kicks out, she is lifted from the ground as the arms clamp her tightly and cold metal jams against her throat. _Kate knows that coldness –_

_Barrel of a gun_, her mind whirs in panic, _9mm_. _A Sig Sauer?_

Only one person she knows has a liking for Sig's. And as her blood begins to freeze to ice, her stomach takes a sickening dive… and a hot voice hisses in her ear. "Well if it isn't Maggie-May! Miss me, sweetness?"

That voice. She'd know it anywhere, it was a voice she'd grown to hate and fear over the six months she had conned him for. _"Jason –"_ She breathes in shock, as he marches her roughly across the kitchen floor, uncaring if she stumbles, the gun only digging harder in her throat, "Jason stop – _Jason what are you doing –"_

"_Getting even."_ He snarls at her, and then pushing her off him, he plants a hard shove on her chest, and she looses her footing. The world spirals into dizzying flurries of colour as she tumbles down the basement steps, the pain shooting through her in thunderclaps as she hits the filthy floor. Immediately she tries scrabbling to her feet, but her ankle screams in resistance. _Damnit, she's twisted it –_

"Jason wait –" She pleads in a ragged voice as he looks down on her from high in the kitchens yellow light, "Jason I can't be down here – _I can't be locked up!"_

"Some kinda sick justice here, Maggie. I believe you wanna _think_ about that awhile."

Jason slams the doors above her head slicing all the light from the basement and pitching the world into darkness.

* * *

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	37. Professional Liars

**Chapter 37**

**Professional Liars**

_Wake up Maggie I think I got something to say to you_

_It's late September and I really should be back at school_

_I know I keep you amused, but I feel I'm being used_

_Oh Maggie I couldn't have tried any more_

_You lured me away from home, just to save you from being alone_

_You stole my heart, and that's what really hurts._

_Oh Maggie I wish I'd never seen your face_

_You made a first class fool out of me_

_But I'm blind as a fool can be._

_- Maggie, Rod Stewart_

On a cool, hazy January morning Kate sits shivering inside a bus shelter on the outskirts of Silver City, her confidence at her hitchhiking skills rapidly depleting. It's just gone five am, and she's been stranded out here since her last ride passed on north to Santa Fe.

She looks around, feeling the blood heating through her veins as she remembers _where_ she is. Southern New Mexico. She shivers with anticipation, an unbidden smile breaking out over her cheeks. She is close now, so close to the border. She finally allows herself to believe that her incredibly long journey which begun in Iowa with an explosion, may now finally be coming to a close. Just another day or two. If she can make it over the border, she vows she will never come back.

As Kate awaits any traffic on the rain-hazed blacktop, she looks back over her journey. Since she arrived in New Mexico, she stayed away from Albuquerque and Santa Fe, opting to travel through the backroads to make it to the south. Although much of this region is sparsely populated ranchland, dominated by the Chihuahuan Desert, she has found a small oasis in the wilderness. She looks outwards at the wild, woodsy plains surrounding her, cloaked in soft violet dawn mist. She has been hiking along the Continental Divide which snakes through the stunning Gila National Forest for three hours now, and her feet are throbbing, back breaking under weight of her backpack, but the quiet calm of this place has seeped into her bones, it seems.

Half an hour later she manages to get a lift from a cantankerous Mexican farmer in his beat up old Datsun. Its cracked leather upholstery smells of seasons old hay, and a few irate chickens cluck about in the rear, on their way into town. Kate puts up with the farmers semi-coherent rantings until they make it into Truth or Consequence, the nearest town where she gladly jumps down. Kicking her way into town, she suddenly realizes she had lied continually for the past half hours drive. Name, history, destination. Everything. Lies. Thick and oh so easy to speak. They dripped from her tongue so readily that Kate has long forgotten how to tell the complete truth.

Whilst in Truth or Consequence, Kate peruses native American art at roadside trading posts, kicks around cubbyhole cafes, second hand shops, and takes in the (sparse) places of interest. Patrons sit on their porches, talking bingo, rodeo and fishing gossip. Occasionally sighing 'Yup' for no reason. A sleepy town. The more ground she puts between herself and the Midwest, the more she feels freer to walk around, see the sights – and she always loved exploring. Although there really isn't much to do here.

Whilst eating a green chilli cheeseburger in a vintage diner off one of TC's dusty side streets, Kate gets drawn into a debate over what really happened out at Roswell with a crew cut guy who is obviously putting the moves on her. She half listens, half drifts in her mind, as is her way. Because she is lying again. The man asks her where she's heading, and she tells him Texas, for spring work on her aunts ranch. But after a the meal turns into a few drinks, Kate finds herself playing drinking games in a dusty bar with her new admirer.

"Truth or Consequence," The man muses, "Hell of a name, don't you think?"

"Its certainly catchy." Kate sighs, wishing he would leave her alone now.

"Well here's a catch for you, gorgeous. A game. You tell the truth, or face the consequences, whaddaya say?" The man watches her with expectant eyes mildly dulled by liquor, and she rolls her shoulders in easy agreement, waiting on the lies to start rolling. The man raises his glass as the duke box clicks onto _Maggie, _a country cover of the old Rod Stewart song. Nails on chalkboard sounded sweeter.

"My name," The man raises his glass as though announcing the second coming, "Is Jason." He eyes her appraisingly. "I just spent the best part of my day with you, and you never even told me yours. So _truth_ – what's your name?"

"What's the consequence if I don't have one?" Kate watches Jason rolls his eyes, placing a hand over his heart in mock pain.

"Well, you'll make me one very unhappy camper…"

She shakes her head, going for her backpack with a sigh. "Well I'm sorry to disappoint --" But as she reaches for her pack, Jason steps back, bumps his own bag and the flap opens briefly. Kate freezes and steps back. She can hear him whittering on in the background, but her eyes are focused on his bag. Slowly, he gets that she isn't hearing him, and follows her gaze… and his nice-boy persona slips.

"Hey. Hey, its not what you think. Wait --"

But Kate is already pushing out through the sparse bar into the cooling evening. He catches up with her, spins her back to him. "Listen – I can explain –"

"Why you've got two Sig Sauers 9mms stashed in your pack?" She flashes up at him, "I don't think I it's one I wanna hear --"

"Listen, I…" He gestures wide with his arms, as though waiting for inspiration from the Gods – when a thought strikes him. His forehead wrinkles, and he looks down to her curiously. "You don't strike me as a gun lady. Country type like yourself."

"Makes two of us --" She goes to push past him, and he cocks his head.

"You knew the calibre and make in what, all of the two seconds you saw them? Something you wanna tell me, princess?"

Kate freezes. "What?"

He approaches. "Truth or consequence. Lets go for _truth_. How come you know so much about guns?"

Squaring her jaw, Kate watches him move close to her and is helpless to stop the note of warning creeping into her voice. "Country types like _myself_ tend to use them for exterminating vermin. For _pest_ control. Here's one for you. _Truth_. Why do you have them?"

He smiles, laughs a little, and she wonders if he is a little drunk – because after a moment of careful contemplation, he puffs his chest out and beams, "Gonna rob a bank."

And something hits Kate. She doesn't give a damn about this morons intention to get himself shot or locked up robbing a bank. No, what Kate sees now is an _in_. An _opportunity_. Because she has one last thing she needs to do before she leaves the states behind forever – or perhaps, more specifically, one last thing she needs to _find_.

The last of Toms personal effects from the crash had been stashed in a holding post back in Des Moines. Kate had managed to get them shipped to a small Hicksville bank here, in Truth or Consequence, by posing as a member of Toms family. Even though it was risky, it was a good deal better than ploughing back up north to Iowa and trying to attain his last possessions from the cities main holding post, stuffed full with crowds, cameras, and guards. Guards who'd recognise her, and be only too quick to take a pop with Mr Shotgun. So it was a risk she'd taken, and looked to have paid off. Tom's possessions had sat gathering dust in this sandy town for months. Any heat attached would have long since dissipated. So finally, she could reclaim them…

… but she had scoped out the bank /trading post/ general store earlier with speculative eyes, only to find it a lot more well protected than she had thought. She would need a plan to get into those vaults. And as Kate knows only too well, all good plans require gunhands for back-up. For _protection_.

And all she can think as Jason moves in closer, as his arms encircle her waist, is this is the chance she was searching for, this is too good to miss…

"Truth or consequence…?" He murmurs down to her, eyes sparkling.

"Truth."

He grins hungrily, and whispers into her ear… _"What's your name?"_

Kate grits her teeth, retracting - "Consequence."

"You can't change your mind…!" He frowns down to her in playful irritation.

She bites back a smile, gets in close as her plan finally takes shape… and whispers; _"Maggie."_

He laughs softly, drawing her close... "Well Maggie. You gone done it now… you already opted for _consequence_."

"I told you my name!" Kate protests, finally warming up, getting into this new persona, into _Maggie_, into the lies…

"No, no." Jason laughs, baiting her with mock regret, "You don't tell the truth in time, you gotta face the consequences!"

She looks up to him forcing herself not to roll her eyes. This is so obvious. But she presses in close, and purrs in her best _'come hither'_ voice, "And what might those be…?"

"Consequences are…" Jason leans down, and covers her mouth with his. She returns his kiss heartily, and as he pulls back, he beams down to her with such a macho gusto that she suddenly is fighting the urge to burst into a fit of giggles, "You're coming with _me_."

She beams. Wide and oh so convincing. And as dusk falls, and he leads her away up the sandy street, she is already wondering how long she will need to groom him for before he will be ready for the job. How _Maggie_ can work her way into his mind, enough to make him quit whatever job he had planned, and instil in him the idea that her plan is actually _his_.

Over the years that would come, Kate blocks out most of her time spent with Jason. But Maggie remains. From then on, every persona she would undertake would be Maggie, no matter what other name she called herself. Because Maggie was never a person. She was so much more than that. She was a state of _mind_. A lying, thieving, murderously self serving, and completely fucked up state of mind.

* * *

_I promise it'll be okay. I won't let anything happen to you, I swear._

Kate recognizes the vile nature of a liar. Her mother always hated that quality in her daughter, always reprimanding her with cold eyes and the immortal words _'you can never trust a liar.' _So Kate hates thinking about the lies she has told, the countless aliases, fake histories, and identities she has peddled, and has invented numerous colourful ways of keeping her mind from straying into these areas.

_I've been sick since you've been out. Still got a cold_

But it is the fragile spider web of deceit that spins through her mind in unconsciousness now, which will not allow her peace. Or more specifically, the lies she has told Sawyer. After all her professions of change, of the vows she had made to herself to be honest with him, maybe she should have known that breaking the lifetime patterns of a habitual liar could never be so easy.

_Wake up Maggie, I think I got something to say to you…!_

The stony cold of the root cellar penetrates, even in unconsciousness. It is a wintry cold that refuses to be bound by states of awareness, and it seeps deep into Kates bones, as she struggles to reawaken in the dark –

_Rise and SHINE gorgeous!_

An almighty splash shatters the silence of the world, and Kate gasps awake. Freezing and shivering, she looks up with a foul glare through the coal grating in the ceiling, where Jason smiles down merrily, the empty bucket in his hands dripping down on her upturned face.

"You always did know how to treat a girl, Jason." She spits up at him viciously as he heaves open the cellar doors with a screech that sets her teeth on edge. He only laughs hard, like this is the funniest thing he's ever heard.

"Oh baby you don't know how right you are." He stands silhouetted above her in the streaming yellow kitchen light, and extends his hand – the other, predictably, trains the gun on her. "Get up here."

Kate scrabbles to her feet. Her palms and knees thud dully, and she sees her hands are bleeding. It is too dark down here to make out anything, search for any kind of weapon – Kate only sees she fell on an age old coal heap, which tore through her jeans. But she isn't thinking about herself, or the horrible lingering dread in the back of her mind about the condition of the tiny life growing inside her. No, her thoughts fly to one thing, and one thing only.

As she staggers up the rickety cellar stairs, she is bellowing, "Where's Sawyer, what have you done to him –"

"He can't _hear_ you, so quit with the fake concern." Jason grips her and drags her into the kitchen. The bright light blinds her, sending shooting pains through her head, "Like you ever cared about anybody else in your entire life Maggie. Or should I call you… _Kate_?"

Kate tries not to react but is helpless to stop the falter in her voice as he manhandles her through the laundry room into the floodlit kitchen, "That's not my name. What are you _talking_ about –"

"God you're a piece of work. I _know_ it's your name so quit with the act. Times come for you to be honest for once in your worthless life –"

And as she stumbles into the kitchen, Kate's eyes finally fall on Sawyer, and her knees lock. She just freezes in place. In moments, her eyes rush over the details.

Unconscious and gagged, his head is tilted forwards on his chest. Blood stains his temple and nose – it looks broken. He looks awful, any recovery he had begun to make from the mindlock having been completely reversed. His arms have been bound tightly behind his back, and a thick length of chain wraps about his waist and chest, binding him fast to a leg of the kitchen table. Which wouldn't have been so bad, if the table wasn't an old iron kind, and wasn't bolted to the floor. It looks impossible to _budge –_

And then the sick feeling hits her. The devastating gut punch it gives her to see Sawyer this way overwhelms her, threatens to make her pass out with sheer, blackest rage. She can't even speak.

"What a sucker." Jason smirks bitterly down at Sawyer, then his eyes travel back up to Kate, his voice taking on an almost amazed tone. "You _really_ are a piece of work. You got your feet under the table, hooks sunk right in here? How much longer were you gonna use him for, huh?"

Jason stops when he realises Kate is just fixated on Sawyer, and reacts with amusement. Waves a hand in front of her face. "You really improved your acting skills y'know. The guy's out cold, give it up!"

Kate snaps to, suddenly realizing in horror that she had just given too much of herself away – if Jason honestly knew the true extent of her feelings for Sawyer, he would kill him. Simple as. He would extort her love for all it was worth, then kill him. So _Maggie_ returns. The liar, the sneak.

"How did you find me?"

"I got a call from some folk. Some strange name – Dharma? – but we both know names can be deceptive huh? The most normal sounding ones can hide such _twisted_ _people_…" Jason kneels by Sawyer, "Whatever the hell you guys are mixed up in, you're in deep… they got me out of prison, gave me a car, a gun, this address… and told me your new piece was _loaded."_ He draws his gun back and whips it down hard across Sawyer's face. Kate flinches in agony as Sawyer bellows, wrenched from unconsciousness. As he breathes shallowly, dazed and utterly uncomprehending, Jason laughs down. A high, reedy giggle. "Jeez _Maggie_, you always did go for the rich, dumb types…"

Sawyer grunts indignantly through his pain, and Kate burns with a sudden blistering blaze of adoration, that even tied to a kitchen table with his nose broken that Sawyer could still get irritated over a comment like that.

"Better than the broke dumb types though, huh?" She retorts, and turning, Jason slaps her hard. And weak as he is, Sawyer bellows furiously, fighting doggedly against his chains as Jason levels the gun at him.

"Shut him up. Right _now_."

Dripping wet, Kate kneels before Sawyer. The violent red of the blood on his face sparks off his eyes, splayed wide, searching hers in frantic flashes of blue. She remembers the first time they had kissed, in a faraway humid jungle, how she had stared into his eyes in much the same way. Steadying herself she breathes in a low, forceful voice, "You stay _with_ me okay? Don't close your eyes. Keep them open. Keep them on _me_ –"

Sawyer hurls muffled abuse at Jason through the gag, and Jason looks down to him viciously. "You think she _loves_ you? Don't make me sick –"

Jason fists a handful of Kate's hair, dragging her to her feet and digging the gun in her throat, "This girls _twisted_, brother! You know she played me for months, had me wrapped around her like a damn cobra. I knew every groove of her body, every freckle on that pretty little face. Made me think I was special, that what we had was _special_ – and then she turned around and shot me in cold blood. Double crossed me, sold me out when she didn't _need me no more –" _He slams her against a wall, digs the gun into her throat and as Sawyer bellows in fury _Kate loses her mind – _

" _No – PLEASE –" _But the safety clicks off, and she screams, _"I'm pregnant!"_

* * *

Her words just hang for a moment… and after a horrible silence, her hands still splayed up as protection, Kate stares up to Jason with wild fear in her glittering eyes. She can barely catch her breath, he winded her so bad… and after a long moment, Jason's breath in hot on her face. 'Come _on_… you don't expect me to _believe_ that?' 

Jason turns down to Sawyer, who just stares at Kate in barefaced bewilderment… he is looking at her with a crazed mix of mistrust, and kill crazy protectiveness. "It's _bullshit_ my friend! Don't you see? This is how she works, this is what she _does!"_

As Jason moves towards Sawyer with the gun, Kate pushes him back, splays across Sawyer as a human shield, desperately wishing she could protect Sawyer from Jason's words as well as his gun, "She gets inside your head and she feeds off you like cancer, until you think you can't live without her. She'll bleed you dry. And she'll say anything, do _anything_ to get what she wants from you, take you for all you got and leave you with a bullet, wiped out _and in the shit_ –"

"What do you _want_ from us?" She says in a broken voice, finally losing her cool. Maggie is gone, she can't keep up that battered mask anymore. "You want me to be _honest?!_ I don't have anything _left_ Jason! There never was any money. It was never about _money_, it was more than that. I never made anything from that job, I don't have anything to _give_ you."

But Jason advances. He is pointing the gun past her head, at Sawyers face. Sawyer stiffens beneath her, as she shields him wildly –

"Jason – Jason he's all I've got -- stop – _STOP –" _She splays her hands out in helpless protection, eyes frantic and crazed, "You don't have to do this… _please_… I mean it. I have nothing. He's everything. Please. _Don't_…"

Jason sits on a kitchen chair opposite her, and stares to her a long moment… then he nods, like he's just come to a hard decision. "Say your last words to him."

"What?!"

"You love him _Maggie_? Then you'd better make 'em good."

Sawyer struggles to speak around his gag, but as Kate goes to move it, the safety clicks off the gun and she freezes. "Uh-Uh-Uh…" Jason sighs in a sing-song voice which makes her want to break his neck, "Your boyfriends gotta foul mouth Kate."

"You want me to shut him up, you need to let him speak to me. Just for a moment. _Please_." She forces her voice to take on a pleading note. Rolling his eyes, Jason waves his gun,

"You keep your hands where I can see 'em though. Behind your back." He instructs her, and gently, she removes Sawyer's gag. He is close to passing out. But God, how she has to give him credit for fighting it.

In a voice she can barely hear he murmurs, "I'm gonna kill him… _I'm gonna…"_

Being this near to Sawyer and being unable to reach out, touch him, is torture when he is in this state. It tears her apart. "Sawyer shut up – _please_ –"

And for once, Sawyer listens to her. He doesn't bluster, or pull her up on it. He doesn't even ask why. Instead, his dwindling gaze finds hers. Frantic, perhaps knowing he can't fight unconsciousness much longer. "You_… you ok…"_

She nods urgently, forcing her chin not to quiver. She is so far from okay right now that she wonders if she'll ever get back there again. He murmurs hoarsely, "Got any last words for me Freckles?"

She shakes her head violently, defying the need for them, the situation, everything.

But Sawyer is glaring over her shoulder to Jason, squinting and trying unbelievably for humour, "Well here's mine… this is some fine mess you've gotten us into…"

"Sawyer –"

"Look out the window." He breathes, and this turn in conversation throws her. Firstly she wonders if this is some kind of code, if he's trying to tell her something, or maybe he's delirious - but no, he looks serious. "Quickly damnit _look_ –"

"That's enough." Jason stands, gesturing to Kate, "You can't even tell him you love him, can you? And you know why? Because somebody like you will never, EVER, know what it is to love somebody else. You're a murdering, lying whore. You'da killed me back then. Just had to aim an inch to the left –"

"_But I didn't –"_ She protests desperately, "I didn't, Jason –"

"Didn't and wouldn't are poles apart, little Katie." He approaches, yanking her to her feet and she shakes her head in furious resentment.

"Why are you _doing_ this? You came so far to kill me?!"

"I'm not gonna kill you. Not yet."

"Then what do you _WANT--?!"_

"What do I want…" Jason smiles down at her, "Well that's the million dollar question ain't it? What could I possibly want from you?"

"You tracked me down, why don't you tell me?" She spits back ferociously.

"I want what you promised me." Jason's eyes narrow, as he finally reveals his motives behind this whole sick game, _"20 grand."_

Kate's eyes widen in amazed confusion, and off her look Jason clenches his jaw, as though irritated she hasn't put this together already. "My share of what you got outta that bank job? Remember the one? Where it wasn't enough that you double crossed me, but you shot me, then framed me to boot? See Maggie May, I think twenty grand's a _killer_ settlement."

Her mind whirs in a daze, working over this new information frantically, searching in vain for an out, for an _opportunity_, _ANYTHING, _"I already told you, I have _nothing_ –"

But Jason isn't looking at her anymore. He is looking to Sawyer who is staring back at him, losing the fight to stay conscious… "I know. But this one… he does."

Kate returns her gaze to Jason in dread. "He can't get money for you – look what you've done to him!" Her eyes burn fiercely, a lump of sheer poison rising in her throat, "Even if he could, I'm not giving it to you. Its not mine to give –"

"Quit fucking playing me – you suddenly got morals?! We stole from everybody we ever met!" Approaching with the gun on Kate now, he suddenly breaks into a frighteningly lunatic grin, "I know! Why don't we ask the hick?!" Jason pins his arms around Kate, keeping the gun digging into her neck, "What do you say big guy? How much do you love this fucked up bitch? She worth 20 grand to you?"

Suddenly Kate twists and cracks a sharp elbow into his ribs – she snaps his arm around, trying to drive it down and break it – Sawyer shoots his leg out and Jason falls hard with Kate. They struggle for the gun and Kate goes to headbutt him – but at the last second, he pre-empts her and smashes a fist into her jaw. She pinwheels to the floor, gasping for breath as he grips her arm, she is whimpering, "I'm not doing it anymore, its different now – _I've changed –"_

He grips her hair and drags her close, out of Sawyer's earshot into the hall. Sawyer struggles to break loose, but he is failing, and it is a hopeless struggle as Jason hisses down at Kate, "You're not different, and I'm sorry you ever thought we were having a fucking _debate_ here. So let there be no mistake. Your boyfriend's _sick_. I know the deal, I was _told_. And that's a pretty nasty crack on his head. He's bleeding all over the damn place. Don't look good, does it?"

She stares up at him, trembling with seething hatred. He smiles down at her, eyes almost affectionate. "You do this job, and maybe, just maybe… I won't kill him. I'll let you call an ambulance. Get the poor bastard some help…"

Kate looks away in cornered fury, and perhaps knowing he is grinding her down, Jason leans in for the kill. "You _love_ him… you'll protect him. Right?"

All their plans of finding Garrett's wife, of getting away are going up in smoke right before Kate's eyes. Without Sawyer's money, they would never be able to stay on the run. They would have to resort to their old ways of making money to survive, the cons, the violence, the lies, the deceit. It would be their undoing…

But what is the alternative?! If she so much as tried to double cross Jason, even if she could figure out a way, a plan, she could wind up getting caught, or shot – and if she died, Sawyer would too. Even if Jason didn't kill him outright, he would never break free alone – he would be left for his injuries to slowly kill him, chained up like an animal, or worse, maybe even starve. A slow, agonising death…

So Kate forces down the poisonous hatred in her, grits her teeth, and forces out the only word she can muster. Damning both of them to their ruins, whatever she does.

"Okay…" She whispers hoarsely, _"…okay."_

And Jason seems to virtually inflate with triumph. He fucking _glows_ with it. "Great." He hisses, pointing with the gun. "Get his identification code. It'll be on his bank card key. Do it now."

He shoves her back into the kitchen, where she kneels before Sawyer almost as in silent prayer. Tries with the last remaining semblances of her strength to bring back Maggie, slip her face into that cool mask.

But whatever she had feared for Sawyer's condition, she hadn't banked on him overhearing that conversation. Because Sawyer is staring up at her with wildly concerned eyes, shaking his head furiously, "Don't do it – it's a trap – _son-of-a-bitch is gonna double cross you –"_

She forces down emotion, and meets Sawyers gaze levelly. Forces out the tremor from her voice, the shake in her hands. "Sawyer you need help, I have to –"

"You think doctors are gonna _help_ me?!" He spits incredulously, "Dharma got people everywhere, the cops, the prisons, for Christsakes Kate _please_ --!"

"I have to believe they'll try…" Kate finds the iron resolution in her voice finally – finally, she finds Maggie, and she hates herself as she whispers, _"I have to try."_

"You gotta wrestle that popper off him Kate," Sawyer hisses desperately, knowing this is his last chance, "Get a jump on him, _something_ – but don't go down there, you do that you'll blow our cover sky high – cops'll come down on you, _you won't come back –"_

But she is reaching inside his shirt. He is struggling against his chains with the last of his strength, trying to stop her frisking him down… but she draws out his wallet. As he watches her with wide, disbelieving eyes, she opens it, and flicks through his cards numbly. She can feel those eyes, those same eyes which she has memorized every sapphire fleck and yellow blaze into her memory, they burn into her head now, begging her not to do it… as she draws out his bank card key, stuffed behind a picture of a blonde haired baby. She doesn't even register the picture. She is just fixated on the bank card key now. She would recognise one like this anywhere. Same as the one she had acquired to get Tom's plane…

She meets his eyes in desperate apology, and he is shaking his head, his fury so strong he can barely draw breath. "Don't you fucking do this – don't you dare –"

She closes her eyes, biting in the furious pain… and hands the card key to Jason. She can't look at Sawyer, but she doesn't need to. She can feel the venom of his shocked eyes on her face. "I'll be back soon." She murmurs numbly.

"Kate –" Sawyer yells in a ruined voice, "Kate don't you do this –"

But Kate is standing, turning out the door. Kate is just a silhouette now. And Maggie is talking. Maggie is in control, now. "Stay awake as long as you can. Don't close your eyes."

"Look out the window Kate," Sawyer yells, _"Look out the damn window!"_

* * *

For all the devastation the job will cause, it is over ridiculously quickly. Because in real life, something so quick as picking up a simple aluminium box from the holding bank takes literally moments. The entire five minutes Kate and Jason had spent inside the vaults at the Tennessee first national holding post in Knoxville, Kate never uttered a word. Just used the key to find the right box, and laid it out on the table. When she had opened it to reveal a jackpot stash of 200 bundles of $100 dollar bills, Jason's eyes had lit up like he had finally seen God's face himself. 

"Now this, Maggie May," He had said with supreme satisfaction, "Is how it shoulda played out two years ago."

She said nothing. Just watched him fill the bag. Amazingly, in the bottom of the safety deposit box was a chunky plastic figure, casting a red sheen against the aluminium box. She had lifted it in detached curiosity to find it was a battered Transformer figure. Jason had called her crazy, but he allowed her to take it with her, claiming it was her cut.

Kate watches numbly as he strides her into the Knoxville County Bank, and as he deposits the cash in his own account, she remains silent. Just clutches the Transformer figure in her clammy hands. And only when they have left the bank behind in the snowy night, does Kate stop Jason. He shoots her a suspicious look, but she is undeterred. "There's a payphone over there. Please – you've got what you wanted, _let me call an ambulance –"_

He starts back towards his sleek black car, "You can use my mobile when we get back to your boyfriends wreck of a house."

Kate stares after him through the falling snow in anguished betrayal. She should have seen this coming, but her foolish emotions had blinded her, clouded her judgement, "You said. You promised once we were _done here --"_

"Get in the car Kate."

"Why are you taking me back there, huh?" Kate moves in close hissing under her breath as passers by bustle about their business, utterly oblivious to the deadly nature of this conversation, uncaring of her turmoil, "You're taking me back there so you can shoot us together, make it look _neat_, maybe like we did it to each other, right? I _know_ you, I _know_ what you're planning –"

"You're mighty suspicious…!" Jason grits a supremely false grin, tempered by iron hard eyes, "Get in the car now. Or I drive back alone and finish him anyway. You can stay or you can run if you like." Suddenly his eyes gleam with malice. "How'd you like that for a choice, _Maggie? _I'll let you run. Because you can't call the police. You can't even cause a scene here…" Amazingly, he wraps his arms around her, putting on a show for the passers by, to her revulsion. He moves in close, "Nobody is going to help you. And you know even if I let you go, and you try making it back to that sap, _I'd_ reach him first."

She stares back into those eyes with the basest loathing she has ever felt for another living soul. It scares her to think herself capable of such black, cancerous hatred. "Not if I get you first." She whispers to him, as he kisses her with triumphant satisfaction. On that snow swept street, amongst the crowds, it is the vilest kiss Kate has ever endured. It is laced with darkest abhorrence. And it is the kiss of death itself.

* * *

As the black sedan pulls up through Sawyer's immense driveway, Kate wonders for the hundredth time if he will still be conscious when she returns. As Jason sang along to country dirges in a mock hick accent on their return, with almost lunatic boyish enthusiasm, she had calculated the hours they had been away. Sawyer had been attacked moments before she had found him on the kitchen floor, and she had been out cold in the root cellar for god knew how long… but it couldn't be more than five, maybe six hours, could it? It was a head injury, but he had been talking to her, he had been _coherent_ when she had left him, so maybe it wasn't so bad, she tried to convince herself, maybe it was a surface wound – 

As they clamber out of the car through the immense snow drifts and start towards the ranch, Kate feels like this is her final walk in the open, and all her senses are heightened to a staggering degree. The wind whips through the snow coated trees with such violence it sounds like crashing waves. Waves on a warm beach, a thousand miles away. Back before everything had gone so wrong…

As Jason pulls the yawning front door closed, the house suddenly seems deathly silent in comparison. And as Jason turns to face Kate, she regards him, and makes her final play. Embraces _Maggie_ once again…

"Why did you kiss me?"

Jason smiles, as though the memory inflates his ego just that little more. "Because I could."

"That's not an answer."

"Oh really…?" Jason advances, swinging the gun thoughtfully as she backs into the living room. Sits down on one of the overstuffed couches, as he stands over her. "Well maybe I just wanted to remember what I'd been missing all these years."

"I missed you." She says softly, looking up to him, "Whatever you think of me, you must _know_ that, right?"

He looks down to her, suddenly a mite uncertain. Like even though he maybe expected her to take this angle, the honesty with which she is speaking is unnerving him, somehow. "Come on. I thought we were through playing games."

"How about one more?" She sighs up to him, apparently saddened by his reluctance, "For old times sake?"

"Truth or consequence, Maggie?"

"You know it." She whispers, as he sits besides her. Still gripping the gun, still not trusting her an inch. She meets his eyes as he says evenly,

"Truth or consequence. The place we met, and the way that we'll end. Pretty fitting huh?" Off her nod, he sighs, "Well I guess its truth all the way for you now, huh? Consequences are looking a little… _unpleasant_ right now."

"Jason," She murmurs, "_Truth_. Do you think you'll feel any better killing me?"

He nods, as though expecting this loaded question. "Some things don't die, Kate. Revenge is one of them. Hatred, another. Love, yet another. So here's one for _you_. _Truth. _Did you use me all along? Every second? Every single, fractional, _infinitesimal_ moment we spent together?"

Kate only stares at him in sadness, and he pats the gun on his knee. "Remember the title of this ole' game… truth or _consequence_."

And finally, Kate meets Jason's eyes. Not Maggie, but _Kate_, and with a flash of a sunlit smile, she whispers, _"Yes."_

And just before Jason has time to take this in, Kate punches him hard in the face. She has always had a killer right hook when she can throw her weight into it – and this may be the last she ever throws. Jason's head rocks and in a flash, they are struggling for the weapon, in a last deadly tussle. Her knee shoots up, slamming between his legs and he yells in agony. Shoving him hard, they stumble backwards – lose their balance –

And as Kate hits the floor amongst Sawyer's old birthday presents, Jason's piercing scream echoes over the walls. Wrenching the gun from his hand, she scuttles back on her behind across the floor, the carpet burning her elbows as she looks up to see –

_Jason is not on the floor._ Her eyes skitter up frantically, uncomprehending… to find he is positioned at a crazy angle, bent almost double backwards… and as her eyes focus through the gloom, she draws a shocked breath.

Jason has been impaled on the devastatingly sharp point of the skeletal pine which stands in Sawyer's corner. The old _Christmas_ tree…

As she finds her feet in almost dizzying disbelief, almost afraid to believe her eyes, she advances on him. The gun shakes in her hand. She has lost any composure or coolness that Maggie's mask had given her. She feels like she is unable to process what she is seeing, that even though she had planned to kill him, she didn't want to see it…

"_Jason…?!"_ She breathes in a high faraway voice which is not her own. And suddenly, she knows she is a murderer again. She has not changed an ounce. She is Maggie. No matter how much she hates it, she is _Maggie_.

Jason does not talk. The only sounds he emits are great choking gasps, like he is drowning. He is kicking his feet in a futile attempt to release himself, but the spine is driven right through his midsection. And as she approaches, the spine of the tree finally gives way, with an awful crunch. Jason hits the floor amongst torn up wrapping paper, a game of scrabble and a child's bicycle, the spike still driven through his middle, an insane sight.

And then he just stops. There is no prolonged spasms or any such thing. Jason just ceases, his eyes falling shut.

And the house falls silent, once more.

* * *

When Kate gets a hold of herself, she frisks him fast. Finds in his pockets a bunch of keys and scrabbling to her feet, she careens down the dark hall, enters the kitchen and slams on the light. 

Saywer doesn't move. His skin, which had once been burnished brown, is now ashy white, hair hanging in strings obscuring his face. And as she approaches in horror, praying she is not to late she falls to her knees before him, reaches out –

"Get the hell away from me."

Yelling in shock she skits back and jumps to her feet as Sawyer dazedly lifts his head. Finding her feet, she stares down at him in amazement, unable to find words to express the knee buckling relief she is feeling right now. Instead, she settles on, "What, you're just gonna stay tied to the table?!"

"Maybe I like it here," He slurs, "Maybe I been here so damn long, it's like we're old friends…!" He tries a bitter smile, "Even named her Betty…"

But his tone unsettles her. Where his usual playful tone usually resounded, there is now a horrible bitterness in its place. "You're delirious…"

"And you're insane." He retorts, "Quite the _couple_, huh?"

"Would you just let me untie you?"

But he looks up to her for the first time, and she sees the distance in him. An awful, great divide has opened up between them. And he snarls, "Throw the keys."

She stares at him in outraged horror, and throws them into the planter. He glares daggers at her, barely restraining his temper. "Throw the keys over _here_."

Shaking her head, she knocks the planter over and the keys skid under the table. He wriggles about and catches them with his knuckles. His wrists are all torn up from the handcuffs binding his hands behind the iron table leg, but he is running on reserve power now. As Kate watches tightly, arms folded, suddenly the there is a whip-_CRACK_ –

And the light shatters out, plunging the room into moonlit darkness. Wrestling with the keys, Sawyer struggles to free himself as a form first slouches in the hallway, then hurtles towards Kate. They tussle, and her reflexes kick in. Bringing the gun up, Kate shoves Jason hard out into the hall, and unloads a whole magazine. As Sawyer finally unlocks his chains and staggers to his numb feet, Jason's form jitters, bucks under fire, and then slumps to the floor.

As Sawyer staggers to a halt in the hall, Kate is staring down at Jason in horror as he lies in a twisted, unnatural position, blood rapidly pooling… and he chokes up to Sawyer, in a final, broken hearted whisper, "Watch your back man… this'll be you next. She's deadly… she's poison, cancer… You're living… on borrowed time."

And as Jason finally dies in the flickering hall, Sawyer slumps to the floor. Just staring at the body. Kate turns to him warily, suddenly uncertain how he will react. Just the sight of another dead body in here, in this place, she suddenly fears it will push him over the edge.

But he is just staring. No emotion. Just exhaustion.

Suddenly he stands. As Kate watches in amazement, Sawyer stalks back into the kitchen. She follows at a distance, watches as he pulls open drawers, and comes across a rusted medical kit. Insanely, she thinks to tell him that Jason is too far gone for bandages, and bites the crazy thought back down hard.

As Sawyer presses a bandage to his head, begins wrapping gauze about it with mechanical motions, she moves in to help him, to speak, but he flinches back from her. "Don't talk to me."

She backs up, looking up to him in shock, _"Sawyer –"_

"_Don't." _He meets her gaze warningly, and the venom she sees there strike cold fear into her heart. He turns back to finish applying the bandage, and mutters, "Where's his car keys?"

"What?!"

"Keys. _Car_ keys. Big machine on wheels, goes _broom_-_broom_? Find 'em. _Now_."

She turns out into the hall, stricken at his attitude and grimaces as she sees the state of Jason. Closing her eyes, she finds the keys in his inner pocket. Upon returning to the kitchen, she finds Sawyer has dumped armfuls of black liners on the counter. "Wait." She says in a low command, but she is rapidly losing her cool, "Talk to me. Just _stop_ ---"

"We don't have time to _talk_._" _He bites scathingly, quickly digging out a length of rope from beneath the sink, "_Move_."

He moves to work, when Kate leans against the counter, catching her breath. She uneasily feels her stomach, wonders if she should _want_ to feel kicking or any sign of life… when her eyes focus.

_Look out the window Kate!_

And for a moment, she forgets to breathe.

* * *

Coatless and yet oblivious to the whipping snow storm, Kate's hands grasp the gnarled pine of the corral fence. Numbly, her feet lift her up onto the struts, and she pulls herself up to sit on the main frame. Just fixated. Can't begin to put anything together, find words, or comprehend. 

After a moment, she hears exhausted steps on the rickety porch. Crunching snow. And then Sawyer leans on the fence next to her. Just watching too. She looks down to him, with the snow catching in his pale hair, and the wonder just overrides everything for a moment. All arguments, all problems.

Together, they turn back outwards to the corral. In the white flurry of the world, a dark shape slowly takes on a form… and a black mare pads through the falling snow. The mare from Sawyer's dreams, _and_ _Kate's black mare._

When Kate speaks, the sorrow chokes her. _"When did it come…"_

"Saw it when I drove the snowplough back. Every year that damn horse comes back down here. My… my Momma caught the rest of her herd, you'd a thought she'd know to stay away. She's the last of her kind… and she's wild, Kate. _Completely, utterly wild."_

Kate looks down to Sawyer in amazement, eyes blurring the world in an ocean of tears as Sawyer continues, in his own world, "She's got sight of the trees, wants to run. She's got the taste of freedom, got it in her blood… she hates being captive." He finally meets Kate's eyes, in some kind of pain she knows she will never understand, "My Momma always tried to break her. She never could."

And then the stallion has approached, and it regards Kate with its eyes of infinite wisdom, of acceptance, determination… of forgiveness. And she doesn't deserve it. She has done a terrible thing. She will never be worthy of forgiveness, or another chance to change.

And as it gently nuzzles her face, she feels the tears burning down her cheeks. And when she turns back for Sawyer, she sees he has gone. Returned to finish the grisly job they have committed themselves to, and turning his back on all the wasted, useless hope that the horse brings. It is too little, too late.

* * *

They wrap the body in liners and Sawyer drives the sedan out to a nearby sand pit with Kate following in the dodge. Sand pit is really a contradiction in terms, because at this time of year, the quicksand is covered over by a thick blanket of snow. But after some navigation, Sawyer finds it, and together, they push the black sedan with its incriminating cargo deep to its final resting place, to be entombed forever beneath fifty feet of silty quicksand. 

They do not speak on the journey home. Kate knows that all her attempts to try will be wasted. Sawyer is working things through, and to whatever ends he decides has been taken out of her hands now. So she just drives, and waits.

Finally, as they pull up the long drive to Shaconage, and dawns violet light begins to paint the sky, Sawyer finally breaks the silence as they get out of the dodge and stare back at the house, together. Both battered, bruised, exhausted.

"What did you _do_ to him…?"

Kate shakes her head hopelessly, "I didn't mean to _hurt_ him –"

"There was a corpse in my hall seemed to think different!" He breathes, but as she approaches him, he backs away. She would never have believed such a simple movement could hold the power to hurt her so much.

"You _believe_ him…?" She whispers, abruptly choked with cold bitterness, "You _believe_ what he said…" Her voice suddenly breaks. Just fails her completely. "How could you think I'd _do_ those things? Anybody else, I'd expect it from. Anybody else but you. You _know_ me!"

"Oh I'm _sorry_ for questioning your morals!" Sawyer hisses, "But he seemed hell bent on killing you so I'm thinkin' you didn't just hurt his damn feelings!"

Kate turns to him fully, realizing suddenly that Sawyer has truly believed everything he heard. Her blood begins to pump hard and hot, as she struggles to stay calm, make him _understand_, "Look, I'm sorry okay, I am so sorry about what he did to you, the _money_, about everything –"

"I don't give a damn about the _money_." Sawyer is suddenly cold. Stone hard, and stone cold, and after everything it literally crushes her. After a moment, he looks back to her, something occurring to him. "And neither did you."

"What…?"

"That job you double crossed him over. You said it wasn't about _money_. So what _was_ it about?" Sawyer's eyes flicker, as though working over the memories, "There's only one thing I know you'd move heaven and earth for… whatever was in that damn _flight_ _case_. Back on the island."

Her eyes meet his dangerously, pleading with him to stop, but he is past caring what she wants now as his eyes burns into her, _"What was it?"_

She bites her lips so hard they form a bloodless line. Unable to believe that Sawyer has fallen for everything Jason had said, she turns and stalks back into the house.

Sawyer follows her wearily, but for once, he will not let her retreat into her world of denial, of ignoring what is happening around them. He has waited long enough for answers, and by God, after all he'd been through in her name today, he would be damned if he was going to be palmed off with one of her withering looks as an answer.

He follows her upstairs into his mothers old bedroom which they had hijacked as their own. When he finds her rummaging through her back pack, he suddenly has a horrible feeling that he has pushed her too far, that she is leaving – but she turns back to him with a paper envelope in her hands. Emerald green eyes wide, she extends the envelope wordlessly.

He only looks to her like she's gone slightly mad… before he gets it. "How'd you get it out?" He breathes in grudging awe, "Pigs'll fly before you could pick a lock on a Halliburton."

"Jack had the key." She breathes in a distant voice. He shoots her a withering look.

"Oh, Jacko had the key, huh? Well ain't that just poetic." He snatches the envelope and squints at the front as he sits on the edge of the creaking bed. "Personal effects, huh?"

She only watches him from across the room, arms hanging listlessly by her sides. She seems detached from it all, somehow… as Sawyer empties the contents of the envelope across the faded patchwork eiderdown.

She can barely watch, as he runs his hand over the contents – a single, pastel green envelope. His brow knits, and she knows she has thrown him as he raises his eyes to hers. She steadfastly meets his. They have come too far to back down now.

His hands deftly work the envelope open and he pours the contents into his palm. She closes her eyes, waiting on his question, the dreaded question. But in the moments that follow, only silence hums through the air. And as Kate opens her eyes, she sees Sawyer just watching her, as though waiting on an answer. When she is less than forthcoming about giving him one, he holds up Kate's toy plane as though she is has finally lost the plot.

"You're yanking my chain…" He mutters in a toneless voice, and when she is still silent, he has the horrible feeling that she really isn't. And now nothing makes sense. Maybe he could understand the possession being money, hell maybe even jewellery. Something expensive, valuable enough to kill for. But this…?! He grits his teeth, "They call it show and _tell_ Kate."

She is watching him with that set look of sadness in her eyes which always drives him nuts. Their physical barriers may have dissolved, but it doesn't mean the mental ones aren't there. And just because they are invisible, doesn't make them any easier to break. And suddenly he has never needed to know anything more in his life. This single stupid plane means the world to her, it has twisted her morals and haunted her, he can _see_ that – and he has to know why. Because it suddenly seems like if she can tell him this, she could tell him anything.

"Why did you want it? _Huh?"_ He stands even though every bone in his body feels like collapsing, forcing himself to close the distance between them as the furious frustration takes hold, "What _is_ it, about this plastic crackerjack plane that would make you _shoot_ somebody for it huh? Make you pull all kinds of scams just so you could get it back, so you could _hold_ it. _Why?!"_

Kate looks up to him, torn in two. If she tells him who it belonged to, it will never be enough. Once she gives an inch, he'll want a mile, the whole story. Why it is so important, and what happened to its previous owner… how can she tell him now? After he has just watched her kill somebody in front of his own eyes for the second time, after she had just endangered their lives and all their best laid plans… he will reject her. She knows it. And if there is one thing she can't handle anymore, it is his rejection.

So they just stare into one another. The rules of engagement are simple, the battle lines drawn. Neither will budge. And then, Sawyer leans in close, presses the plane into her hands. His pain simmers on the surface now, in a raw expression of betrayal. Quiet, and deadly serious, he murmurs,

"I brought you _home_. Showed you what I dream about every, _single_, night. Damn near kills me, having you here… letting you see. Watching you sit at my ma's dresser brushing your hair, cook in her damn kitchen, sweep her lousy porch. I never asked you for nothing back before, and you never gave me an inch…" He moves in close, as though giving her one last shot to tell him, to be _honest_, "But right now you'd better give me something. _You'd better give me something fast…"_

She is holding the plane… distant and so hopelessly far away. And shaking his head Sawyer turns away, as though she has just passed up her last chance. Numbly she moves out after him in the hall, sits on the stairs and watches him wearily look back up at her through the spindles of the staircase.

"Take the car and go."

The words make no sense. Kate simply mumbles uncomprehendingly, _"What --"_

"You heard me _Maggie_." The way he spits her alias stings her. He could have called her any other name under the sun, and they could never have touched upon the way this one hurt her. Just hearing him say it winds her, affirms her darkest fears

_You're Maggie, you never changed, you don't know HOW –_

Sawyer us just looking up at her, obviously hating himself but ultimately resolute as he shakes his head. Stalking into the living room he finishes, "You're on your own. Get out."

* * *

When the reality of Sawyer's words sink in, Kate pivots to her knees in shock and spins into the living room, minding the bloodstains on the floor to find Sawyer picking up the remains of his Christmas tree, as he tries not to examine the blood stained presents. The cold morning sunlight pours through the French windows, washing the room out in cold whites, making him look almost ghostly, their surroundings ethereal, faraway. 

She watches him in horror as she clenches the plane tightly. "This is the way you want it? I _know_ you, I can read you like a book, this isn't what you _want_ –"

"It's not what I want," Sawyer mutters, hefting the broken branches into the fire grate as kindling, "But it's the way its gonna be."

Its all Kate can do to stare at him, a hopeless spectator to his actions. "You're gonna let him do this. You're gonna let him _win_ –"

"This ain't about _winning!"_ He turns, eyes sparkling like rarest uncut diamonds, "You ever honestly think we could be _winners_ in all this? I could never win with _you_."

"How can you say that? _After_ _everything_ –"

"Because its _true_." He grits, unable to keep the emotion back any longer, "I don't care if we're the only ones with a head full of voices and a face full of ghosts, I can't do this with you anymore. Christ, you drive me out of my _mind…!" _

He moves past her and out of the doorway as she turns, "Where are you going – what are you gonna do –"

"I'm taking the horse over the Smokies." He spits back, "Take the damn car and _get_."

Kate goes onto auto-pilot. Picks up her laundry from the laundry room, takes a few supplies from the larder, and pads upstairs to collect her pack. She finds Sawyer stuffing his own pack with supplies. They ignore each other, deliberately keeping a distance as they pack their separate lives away into their separate bags, to head out on separate roads. Finally, Sawyer mutters, "Nice try with the whole pregnancy con. Too bad the bastard was too psychotic to give a damn."

Kate snorts in disbelief. Detached as she is, she can't even bring herself to answer him. If he never knows about the child, he'll never know what he's missing, she reasons. But after a moment, she feels his gaze hasn't shifted from the back of her head. Returning it with drained defiance, she watches him finish zipping his pack.

"Was that a lie too?" Off her uncomprehending look, Sawyer rolls his eyes. "You're not pregnant."

And as she watches him shrug into his jacket, hike up his pack and start towards the door, something snaps inside. Some kind of internal barrier ruptures, and before she knows what she is doing, the words are flying from her.

"No. I'm not pregnant. You're completely right about me. I lied. I've been lying to you all along. I never loved you, I never cried for you, waited by your bedside, praying on every rise and fall of your chest, _I never loved you."_ Her eyes blaze wildly as he stares down to her, stunned as she finished, _"And I'm not pregnant."_

She only stares at him. Suddenly, everything in the world seems very far away. Everything just hones right on down to those words. In his mothers old bedroom with her shoulder slouched and blood on her hands, Kate stares at him, and he for a moment, he actually wonders in horror if she _is_. Christ, he hates reverse psychology.

"Well, _good."_ He retorts, and turns out of the door.

* * *

PLEASE REVIEW ME! I really need to hear you guys are still out there, and that I'm heading in a direction you want to follow me in…! 


	38. Are you strong enough to be my man?

**Chapter 38**

**Are you strong enough to be my man?**

_God I feel like hell tonight,_

_Tears of rage I cannot fight_

_I'd be the last to help you understand_

_Are you strong enough to be my man?_

_Nothing's true and nothing's right_

_So let me be alone tonight,_

_Caus you can't change the way I am,_

_Are you strong enough to be my man?_

_Lie to me, I promise I'll believe,_

_Lie to me, but please don't leave…_

_I have a face I cannot show_

_I make the rules up as I go_

_Just try and love me if you can_

_Are you strong enough to be my man?_

_- Strong Enough, Sheryl Crow_

When Sawyer had come to with a head full of pain and a heart full of bitterness he had come face to face with a scene derived of his worst nightmares. Trussed up like a damn turkey he had lain battered and bleeding, completely unable to help Kate at the hands of a kill-crazy madman with a liking for guns and singing old Rod Stewart songs. He was an old mark of Kates, that much Sawyer could gather. And scary didn't cover it. This guy was a grade A _psychopath_.

_You think she loves you? Don't make me sick_

But although the man was clearly a lunatic, Sawyer was helpless to be struck by his words. Something about the honest to goodness _truthfulness _of them hit so close to home that they branded him hot and unrelenting… because they fully compounded his most deep seated fears about Freckles, his Kate, his eternally faulty angel. Christ, he knew she was fucked up. He knew what she was capable of, had always imagined that she was a hell of a lot more dangerous than he'd seen yet. But Jason's attacks came at him from an angle he couldn't protect himself from, was utterly powerless to form a coherent defence against.

_She made me think I was special, that what we had was special – and then she turned around and shot me in cold blood._

Because she had done this _before_. Pulled the same damn tricks with Jason, made him believe he was her world until it drove him wild, until he would do just about anything for her. Christ, that boy would have said the damn world was flat if she told him so… and all Sawyer kept coming around to, was _how he was exactly the same._ He had let her get too close for far too long, and now it is too late to save himself. He suddenly realises with a sick feeling, that over these crazy months he has not only grown attached to Kate, but she has grown into _a part of him_ as effortlessly as it is to breathe. There is no hearts and flowers in this fucked up state – she has invaded him like a sickness, penetrating right down to his most vulnerable and private core. All because he had allowed himself to believe her different. To _trust_ her –

_She gets inside your head and she feeds off you like cancer, until you think you can't live without her, she'll bleed you dry_

However nuts the boy was, he had Kate pegged well – she was a craving that had lain claim to every part of him slowly, oh so slowly that he had barely noticed. Had she been plotting this all along? Did she somehow mark him, know about his money and see an out? If she'd been playing him since they'd made it off the island, it had worked, he realises in horror. He would have shifted heaven and earth to protect her… but he couldn't. When she had needed him most, he had been powerless.

_Don't you see? This is how she works, this is what she does!_

But it isn't the money. Many people would find it nuts that a man who has spent his life hoarding wealth and wiping people out could lose it all and not give a damn. He never cared about the money. It was never his in the first place, so maybe it's divine intervention, some kind of ultimate cosmic payback that he should get it all conned away from him. No. The reason which kills him, now as he stands by the corral, freezing his damn ass off in the whipping December wind, is that he is scared Jason was right about Kate.

_This girls twisted, brother! You know she played me for months, had me wrapped around her like a damn cobra_

His Freckles hadn't just played Jason – she'd _poisoned_ him. And whilst Sawyer was a pro at the conning game, and has hurt more people than he cares to remember, he has tried to change. He brought her home, showed her the origins of his destruction. Maybe he'd even been planning on telling her what he'd done – he knew it was only a matter of time before she'd ask him. But when he had tried to get her truth out of her, tried to understand what trouble she was in so he could help her, all he had been given was the cold shoulder. Damnit, how could he protect her from what he didn't _know_ about? How many more psychotic Rod Stewart fans were in the woodwork, just itching to pop a couple of rounds in their backs? And if he couldn't protect her, wasn't it only a matter of time before she found him useless? Obsolete?

_Watch your back man… this'll be you next. You're living… on borrowed time_

The evening he had spent chained to Betty had affected him in ways he wasn't sure he liked. Because tied up there, he honestly believed he had never felt more scared in his life. He had been six again, trapped in that house and unable to save the ones he loved. He had spent his entire life attaining wealth, intimidating people regardless of the consequences so that he would not ever be made to feel that way again. Helpless. _Powerless_.

_She double crossed me, sold me out when she didn't need me no more –_

Because now that his money was gone and Jason dead, what other use could she possibly have for him? Did he really believe she could have conned him all along? He wants to. Suddenly, he thinks it would be safer to believe she had. It is safer to hate somebody, to build an impenetrable wall of aversion around your heart. But a niggling thought in the back of his mind makes his rapidly cooling heart ache… because he doesn't want this. It shouldn't end this way. Not like this…

But life, as he is bitterly coming to discover, has a very nasty habit of just never turning out the way it should.

* * *

The screen door grates back as Kate passes on through. The thought flickers through her mind that she had meant to oil the damn thing, then reminds herself harshly that it is no longer her concern. This is not her home. It never was, no matter how hard she had privately wished it. As she moves towards the dodge, she doesn't think about how this is wrong, how everything is spinning far from her control. As she stashes her suitcase in the squeaking trunk, she doesn't notice that it's odd to see her things alone in there, without his. Purposefully _doesn't _notice And as she clanks the snow caked trunk shut, she does not look up at Shaconage, does not replay the events which have taken place inside those walls – desperate vigils by moonlit bedsides, opening presents meant for a six year old who had grown long old, eating spaghetti and making love with the man she'd feared she'd lost. She deadens herself to it. Or at least, she tries to convince herself that. 

Suddenly a blood curdling bray tears through the windswept world, followed by a weighty crash. Her pack drops forgotten from her shoulders, and her utter exhaustion is forgotten as fear burns through her veins. Pounding through the crunching snow, flailing through the overgrowth she careens round back of the ranch –

- and racing up towards the corral, she sees the black mare huffing and trotting backwards frantically, tossing its great shining mane in searing panic. Her stomach contorts right down into a ball as she sees Sawyer splayed up against the gnarled fence, caked in mud and snow - _and struggling doggedly to his feet._

"Stay down – _stay back!"_ Kate hisses to him but to her amazement, he shoots her a murderous look and continues pulling himself to his feet.

"_You_ stay the hell back." He grits, "Me and 'my little pony' here got _unfinished business –"_

"You're mother spent _how long_ trying to break that horse? And you think you can just hop onto it and it'll take you where you want to go?!" She cries, but she realizes with a horrible sinking feeling that her warnings are falling on deaf ears. _He isn't hearing her at_ _all_. "You don't know what the hell you're _doing –"_ Kate crushes up against the railings as Sawyer advances on the snorting horse, "Sawyer, you got her running scared, _she'll trample you –"_

"You'd know all about that wouldn't you?" He hisses, "Hit the road Kate. Go on. _Git_ –" He lunges for the lead reins he has by some miraculous feat managed to fit onto the beast, but the horse rears in a spray of snow. Sawyer staggers backwards, but is immediately on his feet again, as though possessed, as the voices whirl in the growing blizzard,

_Some things are a matter of pride, baby bear _

"Let it go –" Kate yells, "For Christsakes Sawyer you can't break her!"

"_I can break her,"_ He breathes, _"I have to." _He reaches out as the horse rushes him again, barrelling past in a liquid blur and Sawyer goes down hard.

_I can't let it go. I just gotta keep right at it till I break it… or it breaks me_

Weaving like a drunken boxer who is refusing to stay down for the count, he finds his feet, repeating like a deranged mantra, "I can do it, _don't you tell me I can't _– I can break her, _I gotta break her –"_

He grips the lead rein as the horse stampedes past, and with a deftness which defies his bone stiffening exhaustion, he vaults over and straddles the mare. She immediately bucks, but Kate is amazed to see Sawyer doesn't go straight back down. She suddenly wonders if his mother taught him how to do this, and immediately feels she is watching a private event, like he is wrestling with demons she is destined never to fully understand. "Why are you _doing this –"_ She yells, _"Stop!"_

But the horse is going crazy. Just a lightning black flash of braying, bucking fury, and Sawyer is digging his heels in hard, riding her into ever decreasing circles, trying to draw the steam out of her… it is a battle of wills. _Who can hold out the longest –_

_Because some things you can't let go James. No matter how much you wanna… it ain't so simple as that_

Sawyer is thrown off, and Kate vaults the fence. Just as he is staggering to his feet Kate body tackles him into the snow as the mare soars over them, its hooves grazing close enough to clip Kate's jacket. Snow tumbles on them as they lie entangled in the freezing drift, huffing great puffs of artic cold air, so cold it burns their lungs.

"Stay down." She breathes into the warmth of his coat and his racing chest, "Please. _Just stay down."_

And for once, he listens. The manic energy in his veins just dissipates, and he sinks back into the drift. For a moment, they just lie there, their out of synch gasping for air the only sound, save the whistling wind. Finally, she lifts her head in a crazy mess of waves and snow. Eyes burning down green into blue, both equally defiant. His temple has started bleeding again, and she wipes it away, shaking her head…

"Ask me."

"What?"

"_Ask me to help you –"_

"I don't need –"

"_Just do it –"_ She breathes, eyes burning into his, _"Just ask._ Just ask me, and I'll stay. I'll help you..." Her chin quivers but forces herself to finish in a whisper, "But you have to want me to… _you have to ask."_

She stares into him, and she honestly believes she has never wished so hard for him to do as she says. She can't think about what will happen if he doesn't. She can't think about turning around and trudging away from him through the hard winter sunlight. Because she needs him in perhaps the most primal way she has ever needed anybody in her entire life.

He is staring up at her, and she knows he wants to say those words. Wants to so badly, but he is different now. Even his body feels different beneath her, new, reminding her of all their island tussles which had ended up with them spread eagled on each other, back when he had been a stranger, a beautiful annoyance. He is changed now. James is no longer with her, the barriers which had been gradually softening between them have been reinforced. She can see it in his eyes, his poise, feel it in the stiffness of his limbs. Sawyer is staring up at her. And her heart takes an aching lurch… because she hasn't seen him this way in a long time. And she knows what is coming. Before he says anything, she knows.

"I don't need your help." He pushes up from beneath her, without any animosity or roughness. Just honest exhaustion, direct finality. He grips her arms with a detached coldness, and slides her from his warm bulk into the freezing snow.

Kate can only watch. She burns with such burning regret she can barely stand it, but she can only watch. Because what is done is done… and there is no way she can undo her actions. Why couldn't she just have been brave enough to tell him what he'd needed to know?! After everything, she feels she has handled everything wrong. She never _learns,_

_You always hurt the ones you love, Katherine. Its always the way. Leave him. Haven't you hurt him enough? Don't destroy him by trying to make this excuse for a relationship work. It never will. You're both too fucked up to ever make it. _

Staggering to his feet, Sawyer turns his back on her and regards his nemesis, the mare. She lifts her eyes to his back, brimming, trembling, and finally she feels the words flying out.

"_The plane belonged to a man I loved. A man I killed."_

Thrown, Sawyer slows in his stride, back stiffening. Slowly he turns to her as the snow begins to fall. Just stares at her, and she has no idea how to confront this… and he breathes, "Its Jason's plane…?"

"No," She stares into him, desperately trying to read him, "No, its not Jason's. His name was Tom."

Sawyer folds his arms, and cocks his head as though waiting on more… and in a faltering voice, she speaks. "My first boyfriend. Childhood sweetheart, I guess… thought we were gonna get married one day, y'know…? What a joke… I went to him for help. He was a doctor, looking after my Mom… he was caught in the cross fire. Bullets meant for me, took him down. You wouldn't understand what that feels like… watching someone you love, you _worship_, that you would move _mountains_ for get massacred in your arms, _in_ _your name…"_ She feels her throat stinging, refusing to allow her speech, but she forces herself to finish, "That's what I felt like when I saw… when I saw what Jason had done to _you_."

She doesn't know what she expects to happen in these next moments. Maybe recriminations, questions, accusations. He would have every right. She only knows she has never felt more utterly exposed, at her most vulnerable… but what she doesn't expect, is his reaction.

Because there _isn't_ one. He just stares at her with that assessing icy blue gaze. There is no disgust, aversion, sympathy or warmth. Just nothing. And he only nods, before turning back to the mare.

_Too little too late Katherine! _The voices trill gleefully, _Much too little, far too late!_

Kate turns away in a daze. Everything is suddenly hopelessly far away, and everything narrows down to those last moments. Locked on a collision course which she knows she will replay on a loop in her mind for months to come as she makes the worst mistake of her life. Walking away. Footsteps crunching in hollow snow. The wind freezing every part of her. All feeling stripped away, numb. Because every footstep takes her irretrievably further away from him.

She does not look back. She clears the back of the house, the wild reeds spring up around her, deadened in the cold. As she passes, she wishes she could see them in the summer, blooming in their crimsons and swathes of colour. But they will remain in her memory as frozen, like these moments.

The car is before her. The jet black dodge they had squabbled over like children back in misty hazed San Francisco, two essentially different people embarking upon a new, dangerous world together. But they had been _together_. Their union had made them indefatigable, unbreakable, unstoppable. And she knows that now. She knows, and it is too late. If they could have broken each other, they could have conquered anything.

And as her hand falls on the frosted door handle of the dodge, an earsplitting bray rips through the air. Jolting to her senses, she turns without hesitation and barrels back around the peeling ranch house, head racing, blood pounding, heart aching –

And as she coasts to a stop by the snow encrusted corral, the man she had already committed to memory turns, blonde hair cast wild in the wind, eyes skittering across the frozen wasteland to hers… and as the mare backs away, Sawyer breathes, _"Help."_

For a moment she can only stare, uncertain if her ears are playing cruel tricks. But Sawyer is staring at her with a simple, clear demand.

"You'd move mountains for me? So _h__elp me."_

And in those moments, Kate has never felt such a surge of ecstasy, of pure unadulterated exhilaration. Because against all the odds, he has come through for her. And as she approaches, she suddenly is fighting tears. She has never considered herself anything other than his equal, but right now, she knows she is not worthy of the second chance he is offering her. She does not deserve his kindness, this submission. She looks back on the Sawyer she first met, the egotistical, judgemental sadist who would happily let Shannon suffocate so he could con a kiss from her. That man has faded. The man standing before her in the snow swept corral is somebody wholly different. His shades remain the same, his faults definitely still linger… but he is changed in subtle ways she has until now never fully realized.

She has never expected a second chance in this. But if he can give her one, she is determined not to make the same mistakes she always did. As she crosses the final steps and stands before him again, she suddenly understands she is looking upon a stranger again, in a sense. And as she tentatively reaches out for the mare's reins, she can feel those eyes watching her.

The mare huffs under Kate's approach, but she doesn't let that throw her. She remembers back to her childhood in Iowa, and the countless horses she had tamed in her summer school job at the Wensleydale stables. Steadies her breath. Locks eyes with it. Grows very still…

Sawyer watches Kate approach the mare in a kind of reverent awe. The way she calms that beast is damn near spooky – the mare just stills right down. And after a moment, Kate reaches out to him. Beckons him closer. And he approaches her, the air around them suddenly charged, his skin tingling. Because it's like she's cast the mare under some damn _spell_…

Kate's free hand slides into his effortlessly, perfect fit as always… and she draws him close… reaching out to the mare slowly… oh so slowly…

But at the last moment it starts in fear, bucks away from her. She watches in shock as it backs away, feeling a sudden wave of sadness. Whatever affinity she had held with this great beast until now seems to be fading. She looks to Sawyer uncertainly, "It always worked before…"

He approaches the horse, trying to overcome the urge to just jump the damn thing, exert his authority, break her into shape and show her whose boss. But no. He holds back. He slows his steps, his breath, stares out the mare…

Kate watches, stunned, as the mare grows still. Not the least bit antsy… and Sawyer reaches out slowly… and his fingers snag the lead rein. The horse stiffens, and Sawyer stops. And then to Kate's complete amazement, Sawyer raises his other mud caked hand, and wearily rests it on the horses mane. The animal doesn't so much as flinch. Just stares into Sawyer as though fixated…

And despite his exhaustion, a slow sunny beam breaks across Sawyers grizzled cheeks. The dimples return, as he slowly lets go of the reins, and cups the mares head, brings his hands up and down her snow-flecked neck. His eyes travel up to find Kate watching him, and that smile fades, as though he has been caught at his most vulnerable.

Bowing her head, Kate turns and heads back towards the car. Slinging her legs over the corral fence she drops down into the snow, when –

"_Hey." _

She turns to see Sawyer tying the horse up. She smiles in amazement. Then off her smile, he strides across the paddock and unmindful of the fence separating them, he steps into her open arms. Throwing his own around her, he buries his head in her neck, and she clutches him tightly.

"I'm so sorry," She whispers, feeling that the word could never come close to expressing the gut wrenching regret in her, "Sawyer _I'm so, so sorry –"_

"Thought that bastard killed you Kate," He mutters, _"Swear to God, I was gonna hunt him down –"_But she silences his murderous intentions with a drugging kiss, and he pulls her in close, raking his hands up through her hair. She is shivering against him, and he wraps his arms around her, pulling her inside the warmth of his jacket. As they head back towards Shaconage together, Kate wraps her arm about his waist and nestles her head into his shoulder.

* * *

"_Knew_ you had a thing for doctors," Sawyer sighs as he dumps an armful of wood on the hearth. He purposefully evades looking at the happy birthday banner still in there as he flicks a match on it. The flames flicker away at it quickly, and after it is reduced to ashes he feels a little lighter, somehow. He turns back to Kate with a curious smile as she finishes throwing a blanket over some chairs. They had kicked off their snow drenched clothes and stripped into their underwear. Sawyer piggybacked a protesting Kate down the stairs because he was so sick of her complaining about her cold feet, and they brought blankets down to the living room, the only room with an open fire. Sawyer had wanted to wrap Kate in the blankets and never let her out, but it seemed Kate had other plans. As he had chopped firewood he had returned inside to find that she hadn't been making a bed, as he'd hoped. No. It looked like damn World War 3 had hit his front room – four chairs with a blanket draped over them stood in the cluttered centre as the crowning glory. Kind of like the dens he used to make when he was a kid, only bigger. For a brief moment he is about to take issue with her design for the tent, thinking he could show her a thing or two about _real _hide-out construction – before he sees the childish shine on her face. 

"Always thought this place lacked a woman's touch," He smiles, eyeing the chaos she has created in her wake. He doesn't care as she slides her arms around his waist.

"Me too," She grins playfully, "And I _don't_ have a thing for doctors. I'm with you remember?"

"How could I forget?"

She excitedly leads him into the doorway of the makeshift den, gestures to it eagerly. "Y'like it?"

"Oh _yeah_, just what we need…!" Sawyer can't resist, "What _is_ it again?"

She rolls her eyes and lifts the flap of blanket at the head of the den. When he looks inside, his face lights up. She has brought damn near all the bedding from upstairs and arranged it here. He wishes his first thought wasn't about just keeling over and snoring his head off. Instead he just slits his eyes with mock scrutiny at her and sighs, "Why Freckles, I do believe you're trying to seduce me."

She only plants a determined kiss on his lips and eases him down onto the cool sheets. The firelight casts their flickering shadows against the pale sheets, and the sensation of skin against skin immediately awakens the beast in him. Her kisses leave him breathless, and he is awed by the urgency behind them, the passion, the need. As they work together, as the den grows stifling and their body heats soaring, they rise together, reaching their peak and clenching onto each other tight. And as they collapse side by side, throbbing, lying in breathless silence. Just rushed breathing and roaring fire, and nothing else matters. Not in here. Not now, not tonight.

"_I was telling Jason the truth."_

Sawyer shifts, already bordering close to sleep. He squints down at her, strokes her hair from her face. "Come again…?"

And she is just staring up at him deeply. In the firelight, she loves him. Every inch of him. She loves the way the firelight flickers in russet and burnt yellow over his hair, every fleck of blue and crystal white in his tired eyes, every line and dimple on his face. And she breathes, "I have nothing. You're everything."

He looks a little thrown by her honesty, and she realizes suddenly that he is lost for words. He holds her close, arms wrapping about her tired body like a protective shield. And she sighs into his neck, "You know what day it is today?"

"Saturday?"

"Its Sunday. And its Christmas _Eve_." She shunts up onto her elbows, and Christ where she gets her energy from he'll never know. That excited sparkle is in her eyes again, indefatigable. "It's nearly midnight. In five minutes, it'll be _Christmas _Sawyer...!"

"Hate to break it to you, but we're fresh outta cookies." He burrows deeper into his pillows impishly, "And _you_ drank all the milk. Looks like Santa's gonna pass us by..."

She stares down at him a moment, then a flash of inspiration hits her. Before he knows what's going on, she has yanked the bed sheets up and around her, and has hiked up the blanket flap of their den. A blast of cool air brings him sharply to his senses as she springs up and out with a rushed kiss. "I've got something for you. Wait here!"

He barely has time to even register she is gone before she is back again, kicking her snow crusted shoes off and dropping next to him with a childlike giggle. She presses against him and he shivers, playfully batting her off. "Dammit you lost your mind?! What in hell –"

But she is opening her pack, and she meets his gaze, "Is it time? Is it Christmas?"

"Yes, yes, already, _what –"_

But his words die in his throat as she extends her hands, eyes wide and excited as she awaits his reaction. He is utterly mind blown. Hikes up on his elbows, rubbing his face to convince himself he is indeed awake and not dreaming this… but when he reaches out, the plastic is cool to the touch. Battered and dented from a childhood of scrapes, but definitely there. Definitely _real_.

And as he grasps the Transformer in his hands, he lets out a harsh sigh of what was meant to be laughter. He slowly raises the figures arm, lowers it again. The damn things eyes still light up, it still coughs out a spluttered threat to the Decepticons. And he laughs, laughs so hard that molten tears drop like hard dimes, plink off of his hands.

He meets Kate's eyes in stunned awe. "Where… how did you…?"

"It was in your safety deposit box." She flushes, so sorry that the plastic figure was the only thing she had managed to salvage from it. But from the look on Sawyer's face, this figure is worth something. Maybe not twenty grand exactly, but who ever could put a price tag on memories? She is helpless but to enquire, "Didn't you… didn't you stash it there?"

His gaze flits about their bedsheet den, unseeing, putting together the pieces of his own puzzle in his mind… "No… no, I didn't." Suddenly his eyes widen. "Son-of-a-bitch…"

"What?"

Sawyer breaks into a trembling smile, shaking his head in disbelief. He scratches his head bashfully, uneasy with talking about something which is obviously so private… but meeting Kate's eyes, she urges him on. And he sighs, steadying himself.

"When the shit hit the fan here, I went to stay with my Uncle Doug and Aunt Fee out at Dyersberg. After I got outta hospital, that is. Y'know, smoke inhalation and all that jazz. Anyways, I stayed with him while they organised the funerals, and this guy never left my damn hands, no word of a lie…" He smiles briefly at the memory, "Took good 'ole Megatron everywhere… bent his ear about everything. Everything I didn't talk to people about, y'know? He was cool, 'caus he never answered back. Never told me to quit bawling, act tough, grow up, get out." His jaw squares, and he sighs, "He got lost when they sent me away. I never saw him till this day."

"So how'd he get there?" Kate had to bite back a smile, as she picked up Sawyer's affection for calling a plastic figurine _'he'._

"I bought the lease for this place offa Dougie while I was in prison. The money you gave Jason was the last of what I had left. Doug musta left this guy in trade for the money, I guess." He meets Kates gaze, realizing what he'd just revealed. But he sees no recriminations or questions in her eyes. She will not ask him about prison, until he tells her. And he doesn't want to go down that road tonight. Instead, he draws her close and brushes a gentle kiss on her lips. She smiles, and he sighs, "I don't have anything to give you..."

In the flickering den, he knows she understands his implication. There is no money. There is nothing left but the clothes and possessions they own. He has nothing to offer her, except himself. And he knows that's never been worth a hell of a lot to anybody before.

But her smile deepens into something else. It's nothing he could ever hope to describe. It transcends a grin, a beam, and it lines her cheeks and face and makes them radiate with warmth. He's never seen anything like it, and it scares him and enthrals him all at once. And she takes his hands.

"I don't want anything."

"Next town we hit, I'll get you something nice –"

"I don't want anything," She repeats in that happy, somehow incredulous voice, as though by offering he has misread her somehow. She only leans in closer, until those amber green eyes fill his vision, the world, and she breathes, "I've got what I want."

"Is that so…" His voice betrays his astonishment, his lust, his racing heart. And she is moving above him, working the sheets over the pair of them and whispering into his ear,

"I've got what I want right here…"

And as she dissolves into giggles and throws the sheets up and over their heads, skin meets blessed skin again, mouths get together and Sawyer sighs in bliss,

"Why Freckles, you are_ spoiling _me."

* * *

_Section 48, sub-category 15 – Dharma training manual_

_STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL _

_Specimens may experience extreme irrationalities, notions of persecution, leading to advanced levels of psychotic behaviour. In documented studies, if the specimen has survived implantation, these tendencies will increase as our technicians gain increasing brain and neural control. If the technicians are unable to achieve satisfactory control of a specimens neural functions, a mindlock may be implemented._

_In the unheard of occurrence that a specimen breaks out of, or resists the mindlock, code red must be implemented and the specimen locked down. For then we have truly found **'The Source'**. No harm must come to the specimen whom we may suspect of being **'The Source'**. Their wellbeing is pivotal to not only our prestigious project, but to our very survival. _

_For if the specimen should perish, so should we all. _

Agent Blue looks up from the Dharma manual, massaging his aching brow. Sweating profusely, feeling feverish. He has not allowed himself sleep since the failure of the mindlock, and the code red situation unfolded like an ever waking nightmare before his eyes. He returns his tired gaze to the vast computer consoles before him, bathing him in their headache inducing glow… but his eyes rest on a static ridden screen. A vague image of a snow swept corral is barely visible, and for the thousandth time, Agent Blue leans in close, so close he thinks he can almost taste the snow, and he breathes, "You cannot be The Source… _you cannot… be…"_

"But we know he is." A sharp voice barks from behind him, and Agent Blue jerks back from the monitor, squinting as his heart joins his head's pounding. Henry steps into the dull pool of light around the vast computer systems, with a set look on his empty face. He always looks murderous of late. And it has taken Agent Blue's pulse a good twenty minutes to resume its regular pace after his recent meetings with his boss.

Henry leans against the desk and stares at another computer screen. Glares at the multitude of stars which obscure the words and thought patterns there.

_wants to run _

_that's just _

_don't need her_

"In your own words, dear Agent Blue," Henry muses, "Nobody has ever broken from a state of mindlock before. It is unprecedented. And we know what that means, don't we?"

"Section 48, sub-category 15 of the manual Sir," Blue sighs, " 'In the unheard of occurrence that a specimen breaks out of or resists the mindlock, code red must be implemented and the specimen locked down –"

"-- For then we have truly found _'The Source'."_ Henry finishes with an almost reverential glow to his crazed face. "And he _must_ be locked down. Which brings me to the purpose of my visit. Did that buffoon Jason eliminate Kate yet?"

Agent Blue rapidly feels the world shifting from beneath him. Feels like he wants to pass out, would happily do so just so he could escape this. Escape Henry's questions. Escape those probing dead eyes. Escape his imminent wrath...

"Can our men go in and pick up Mr Ford?" Henry is advancing with blazing excitement, "Did Jason neutralize him as planned?"

"Sir – there have been_… complications."_

And Henry freezes. Just stops. The way his face drains of all emotion, turns into a hard pinched mask is terrifying to see. And he just waits. Just demands and explanation with those glassy, dead eyes. Agent Blue can barely speak. "Jason allowed his emotions to cloud his mission. I _told_ you he wasn't a good target to use against them –"

"What happened…?" Fatefully, Henry has advanced close.

"I'm unsure --" Agent Blue sweats helplessly, gesturing with wild motions to the consoles, "Kate is much easier to read – I think she killed him."

"Our Miss Austen is _full_ of surprises…" Henry grits, as Agent Blue pulls a long sheet of paper from the printer and holds it out with uncertainty. "I rather fear we have underestimated her."

"But it is a blessing he failed, Sir." Agent Blues voice grows breathless with barely suppressed hope, as he glimpses one final way to save his job, and his life, "As unbelievable as it sounds all our hopes have come true. _The woman is pregnant..!"_

And Henry just stares at him, demanding an answer. It's chilling to watch… when suddenly his face creases in an astounding look of _joy_. And without hesitation, Henry steps forth, flings his arms open wide –

_- and hugs Agent Blue tight._ Blue flinches, outright scared now. His heart pounds against his rib cage so hard he can barely breathe as Henry first squeezes him tight, then draws back - and slaps his cheeks sprightly. Agent Blue is lost but to feel the sting, watch his Boss in dread.

Sighing as though he himself is the proud father, Henry turns back to the consoles and considers this changed situation with brimming satisfaction. "My my my…! My word. Who'd have thought…? And we always planned it being the doctor who got the girl. Our Mr Ford must have the charm of the devil. This is… _fascinating_. And this calls for a change of _attack_, my dear Blue. You know what to do. Time to take our assault on a more… _spiritual level."_

Agent Blue looks uncertain, then grits, "Code Black?"

"Indeed," Henry sighs, rubbing his hands together excitedly, "Pinpoint as many of their ghosts as you can. Anyone related to them, hurt by them, killed by them who hasn't moved on. Scour all of Limbo if you have to. But _rally_ them. Gain control of them. And we shall use them _all."_

"I'll do my best Sir," Agent Blue nods anxiously, head bobbing like a puppet on strings, "And to what effect?"

Henry only stares at him like he is simply the most imbecilic man he has ever encountered… and sighs, "Because that child is now a very valuable commodity. A child, born of two specimens?! It is unprecedented. Imagine this, Blue…" And Henry closes in finally, a crazed lunacy in him, "If the specimens were implanted with thought transmitters, with receptors that allow us to read their minds… would it not stand to reason, that their child may very well be born with that ability inherent?"

"Telepathy…?" Agent Blue breathes, astonished as Henry turns towards the doors, stunned out of his mind. "Do you really believe it possible? That we could have _created_ such a thing…?!"

Henry does not answer. His wide grin is all the affirmation Blue needs, and it terrifies and excites him in equal measure now. "The greatest scientific achievement in decades… Sir, think of the possibilities!"

Henry stops as he reaches the doors, the possibilities all too clear.

If it was true, and the child was born with such powers, it could be the greatest weapon ever created. It would bring the concept of mind control from the realms of science fiction and plant it firmly in the world of reality. And if he could create one being who had the innate power to dominate minds at will, then what would stop him creating more? With an army of these beings… he would be unstoppable. A new era would befall the world. And he could control it all…

Henry turns at the door, a thought crossing his mind.

"Oh, and Blue?"

The Agent turns in his seat, certain that this bizarre behaviour was prelude to his death… but Henry is smiling. A lunatic great happy beam.

"_Merry Christmas."_

* * *

**Merry Christmas folks! Hope you enjoyed my little Christmas present to you all! PLEEEEEEEAAAAASE REVIEW!**


	39. Running on Empty

**Chapter 39**

**Running on Empty**

_Running on empty_

_Running wild_

_Running into the sun_

_But I'm running behind_

_Gotta do what you can to keep your love alive_

_Try not to confuse it with what you do to survive_

_- 'Running on Empty', Jackson Browne_

As Sawyer drifts awake to shattered light beaming through the shadows of their blanket den, an icy breeze filters through the scratchy blankets. He can feel Kate's body curled away from his, freezing cold. He doesn't like the way she does that - he has lain besides her long enough to instinctively feel the tension in her shoulders, merely from the way his shoulder rests against her back. He doesn't like that either. Damnit, he's not even awake yet and _already_ he knows she's not in a good mood.

He lets her stew for a couple of minutes, and would probably have turned over and gone back to sleep if she hadn't left the damn curtains wide open, letting all their heat out into the cold house. As it is, the tickle of icy air on his feet drives him nuts, and her freezing, terse body next to him ain't helping matters. Crazy woman must have been out in the snow again, she's freezing.

There is no use in trying to rest now. Finally he gives up on sleep, figures he's gonna give her a piece of his mind. Teach her not to go leaving curtains open when good folk are trying to _sleep_. Damn her. Swinging his long legs around the bed he rolls over, then decides it'd be much more fun to warm ole' Freckles up a tad. He brushes a trail of kisses along her slender neck, and when she stirs, curls towards him, he kisses full lips – and his eyes flash open as a whip crack _slap_ rocks his face.

He bellows in pain, scuttling back, blinking away sleep –crashes through the blankets draped over chairs, flailing and when he yanks the blanket from his head with furious triumph he hefts it across the room to land at –

– _Shannon's_ _feet_. Those otherworldly sticks are unforgettable, as his eyes trail up their length, over her furiously crossed arms, to see her lipstick smudged and her brow knitted tight. Son of a bitch no, _no way_ - immediately he is crushing his palm over his mouth, gagging, Christ he kissed a corpse, a ghost_, a dead gal --_

"_Sleeze! Pervert!"_ And Shannon's screaming her _damn_ _head_ _off_ as Kate runs in and looks bemused at the carnage he has made of their den. She folds her arms angrily.

"Sawyer!"

"Shannon! _Shannon!"_ He gestures wildly and Kate sighs, looking around the door.

"He kissed me!" Shannon spreads her arms furiously, "Just couldn't keep his hands to himself _my_ _GOD –"_

"She kissed ME! God-DAMN! _You were in MY bed!"_

Furious wrath as she slits her eyes, plants her hands on her hips, "Its Christmas Day and I was _COLD --"_

"_Cold_, don't I know it, like kissing a goddamn fish!" His eyes flash indignantly, _"And_ you have _stubble_ –"

"Enough already – _STOP –"_ Kate steps forth feeling again like she's parting to squabbling children, "Shannon, did you find her? Garrett's wife, _did you find her?"_

But Shannon is on a roll now, "I hitched all the way to freakin' Chicago for you guys. In the rain. I rode with sheep through Lexington! _SHEEP! _Do you even care how impossible it is for a ghost to _hitchhike?_ No! I'll bet you never thought of that huh?" Spreading her arms wide, "IM INVISIBLE! Only apparent to dogs and _YOU_ two! How do you think that makes me _feel_ –" Shannon tosses her blonde hair, sees a couple of split ends and bellows in annoyance, "Christ, do you have any _conditioner?_ Limbo's playing _havoc_ _with my hair –"_

"Get her _OUT_ of here!" Sawyer yells.

"I'll get you some," Kate sighs soothingly, gritting her teeth and shooting Sawyer a dangerous look. Pissed at him for perhaps blowing their only chance of finding out where Garrett's wife is, she proceeds to amp up her best charm offensive. "Now, Shannon, _please_ – did you find her?"

Shannon sighs incredulously, like she has _way_ bigger problems to contend with in Limbo, such as the curse of lifeless hair. "Listen, I think I got what you _want_ already. Christ, put some pants on!"

Wrapping the blanket around his waist Sawyer lunges at her, "God gimmie strength, if I could kill you again _right now Babycakes –"_

Kate laughs with great false gusto, intercepting him and patting Shannon's semi apparent shoulder as though Sawyer is joking. "Hey, now, look – we're really grateful for what you did, you know that!"

"You're totally lying! _He_ thinks I'm the Anti-Christ!"

"Of _course_ he doesn't!" As Kate finishes digging through her backpack, she hands over a bottle of conditioner to Shannon who appears appeased. "We're really grateful _right_ Sawyer?"

She digs his ribs hard and he draws a hiss of surprise through clenched teeth. With superhuman effort he jerkily turns to Shannon and pulls the biggest shit eating grin he can. Kate extends her hands placating, "So, now we're all friends again… where is she? What did you find?"

Shannon makes a great show of perching on the sofa, milking the spotlight. "So anyway, I finally made it to my Stepmom's office. And just so you know, bitch has totally lost the business since me and Boone died, we were like, the _brains_ behind the whole outfit –"

Sawyer starts, "If brains were coconuts, _you couldn't –" _

But Kate intercedes quickly, "That's awful. I'm sorry, Shannon."

"Please. Like hell you are," Shannon sighs, "You're only being good cop to his bad one because you want to find that lady. You don't care." Reigning herself in, she stands, taking in the window… and turns, holding out a piece of paper. Kate steps forth and takes the small slip. _A_ _photocopied marriage certificate_.

"Your woman's called Chrissie Garrett. Maiden name, Campbell." Shannon says quietly, staring outwards sadly.

Kate's eyes rove hungrily over the paper as Sawyer steps forth, his interest finally piqued. "Look," Kate motions to him, eyes blazing in excitement, "Under occupation, she's classified as head of psychoanalytical research at _Banff University, Mt Edith Cavell…_ Edith Cavell…_"_Her eyes find Sawyer's, mind turning over this new information, "…that's near the Rockies, right? _Canada?"_

"Kate, this thing's nearly thirty years old," Sawyer sighs in disappointment, jabbing at the date in the corner, "She's gonna be long gone_, it ain't enough to go on –"_

But Kate isn't hearing him and he knows it. He can see a new fire spark up inside her as she grips onto the marriage certificate determinedly. "It's gonna have to be," She turns to Shannon and beams breathlessly, "Thank you. Thank you so much. You don't know how much this means to us." She turns to the doorway, directing her words at Sawyer, "Come on, we can be out of here by noon – _we gotta pack –"_

Sawyer stares after the mini-hurricane that is Kate, and winces, glaring to Shannon for unleashing this on him. And he puts his finger on what it was Kate just said that sent the heebie-jeebies through him – he had referred to them as _us. _To hear it spoken matter of factly, off the cuff suddenly terrified him, like he and Kate had morphed into a unit somehow, like it had snuck up on him while he was asleep.

Shannon meets his eyes, but for the first time she doesn't appear confrontational.

"You got what you wanted," She says, "I guess that's us through…" And suddenly he sees she is fading. Ever since Kate plucked that bitty piece of paper from her hand, Shannon is growing more transparent by the second. And he's surprised to feel a vague sense of melancholy. Her little hissy-fits had kept his days interesting, at least…

"We can only pray," He sighs grumpily… but he is transfixed by how her body is fading, fading away before his very eyes. Because suddenly, to his utter astonishment, he doesn't _want_ her to die. He'll never admit, even to himself that he enjoys her little visits – the simple truth of the matter is, that Sawyer is not a man to have friends. He never got the simple basics down pat – never saw the need for them. And now, with just him and Kate on the road together, he has found some tiny semblance of comfort in their exchanges. If anything, she was somebody else to vent on… and he remembers fleetingly back to the river, when she had zapped herself onto the rocks nearby. How he had seen her as an annoyance, nothing more.

And finally, he realizes what she has done for him. She had brought him his mother, however fleetingly. She had trekked halfway across the state to bring them the information which could save their lives… and what had he ever given her except maybe a complex?

"Please," She breathes, "I know you're holding out on me. Sawyer, _please…" _

"I can't just magic up your damn brother Sticks," He sighs, "I wish I could, but what in hell do you want me to do?!"

"_Tell him to meet me –"_ Shit, he can see the TV set flickering right through her now as she steps forth desperately, "Make him meet me at the gates Sawyer. I'm going through soon, I can feel it and I don't want to die alone, _I'm scared –"_

_We all die alone though, don't we? _The voices jibe at him, but he bites his tongue before he tells her that. The last thing he needs is a hysterical Sticks to contend with, it's bad enough dealing with a homicidal one. "Okay," He breathes, feeling a strange wind begin to whistle through his front room, "Alright, okay _I'll do it –"_

"Thank you…" She breathes, but her voice doesn't hang on the air so much as ring in his head now.

"Thank me with a beer in Heaven, huh?" He tries to joke, but as the wind picks up and she faints away he thinks she may be crying. Stone cold Sticks is _crying_, crying and leaving, and how he wishes he could _stop those tears – _

"Thank you," He blurts as the final traces of Shannon disappear from this world, "Thank you for bringing her to me – _catch you on the other side –"_

And just before she disappears into her damn pixie-dust, her tearful face breaks into a smile… and she blows him a kiss. He actually watches the kiss, the tiniest ripple of cold air part from her lips, drift through the suddenly freezing air… to dissipate against his cheek with an ethereal icy tickle. He knows she's finished. Sticks has officially bitten the dust, and fully loaded up on promises and hair conditioner, she's heading to that fabled city in the sky…

But when Sawyer looks up, he catches the afterglow of Shannon leaving him behind, with that sunny beam on her tearstained face.

* * *

As Sawyer enters his mothers old room, he is can't decide whether he is pissed off or amused to find it looks like a bomb site. Kate has dragged down the old battered leather suitcases from above the closet and is standing with a pair of his trousers in one hand and a shirt in the other, studying them seriously. 

"These clothes," She sighs gravely, "I think we should take them because it'll be cold. But when we reach Cherokee, we'll have to change the way we look. Buy clothes we wouldn't normally wear, get wigs, change our appearances completely; it could give us an advantage –"

"It doesn't matter _what_ we look like," He gives a challenging look holding up one of her shirts, "I could dress in drag and do the hula and they'd still know it was me! Because they got me up here." He taps his head, smile fading. Because she looks anxious to form a plan, he knows she needs one… he settles on giving her hand a brief squeeze, "You know I'm right."

"I'm trying Sawyer, what are you doing?" Her tone is disappointed, and he immediately feels bad, as she finishes strapping up the cases. Why couldn't he just have humoured her? He looks to maps which she has opened on the dresser and sighs, determined to be of some use.

"_Please_ tell me we're not going to Canada on the whim of a suicidal ghost…?" He asks hopefully and Kate sighs.

"You have any better suggestions? It's the only lead we've got, it's something to head towards at the very least… also, Jason said Dharma contacted him, told him exactly where to find us, remember?" She looks around at the room sadly, running a hand along one of the low whitewashed eaves, "This place isn't safe anymore…"

Their eyes meet a moment, as the reality of the situation sinks in. This house, for all its ghosts and memories had been the first place they had stayed which had been more than a passing roof, or a transitory break from the road. Neither would ever admit it, but they had tentatively begun to form roots. And although this place would never lose its horrific memories for him, Sawyer had grown grudgingly used to little things about this old place – seeing Kate thwack the battered TV set in his living room, watching the sun set over the ocean of blue mountains from their porch, seeing her rummage through his mothers larder for breakfast. Stupid, inconsequential, _precious_ little things. In an alternate world, it could have been home. In a world where ghosts and thought control implants and mindlocks didn't exist. If they weren't running…

Almost as though reading his mind she sighs, "We can't set down roots until this is over…"

"I know. We gotta run…" He sighs, without an ounce of conviction.

"Nothing's forever, Sawyer…" She breathes, closing in, "Once we get these – these _things_ out, then maybe… just _maybe_ we can consider it. Someplace far, far away from here…" Off his look, she prompts softly, "That's what you want right?"

He nods in agreement, but she knows him well enough to know he is humouring her. The thought that he may actually _want_ to settle down stuns her, even though she had privately wished it herself. She has never considered that he may actually want to stay here…

Sawyer is fingering his mother's possessions on the dresser with a set, faraway look.

"My Uncle Doug I told you about? He tried rebuilding it when I was in jail. I ever tell you that…? But I soon put paid to that."

"Why didn't you want to rebuild it?"

"Because I need…" He seems to be struggling for the right words, can't find them. "I need it to be this way. Frozen in time. I need it to be this… this constant reminder of all that happened. Its my source of hatred. Don't exactly work the same if its whitewashed with a load of flowers."

She nods, knowing nothing she could say would fit. Instead, she gives him a moment, then, "I figured out a route," She sighs, pulling them unwillingly back onto the matters at hand, and safer territory as she picks up the maps, "If we're heading north, that is…"

He looks to her uncertainly, but her eyes are burning, _trust me… _and he sighs, throws his hands up in uneasy defeat. "This here's some crazy notion Freckles…"

But she breaks into a beam, kissing his scratchy cheek and grinning up at him until his irritated look softens, and she feels safe to elaborate excitedly, "So I was thinking, we head out towards North Carolina, then out from Virginia through to Illinois, Wisconsin to Montana, then we cross the border into Alberta."

"Sounds like you got it all figured, huh? Kate, when did _anything_ ever go to plan?"

But she isn't hearing him, as she sighs, "We're gonna have to leave the car."

"What?! I paid good money for that, _I_ _ain't just –"_

"Think about it," She sighs, "There won't be enough gas to get us to Cherokee, remember? We can't risk going back towards Nashville, and if we set out in the car we'll just wind up breaking down an hour or so up the road –"

"So what do you suggest, genius? You gonna click your heels twice and zap yourself to Canada maybe, Dorothy? And whatever you think, I ain't _piggybacking_ you to Cherokee –"

"Three clicks." She smiles mischievously as she shoulders her pack and hefts up their case.

"Come again?!" He yanks the case from her indignantly.

"Dorothy clicked her heels _three times_ to get to Oz. And if I'm Dorothy, I guess that makes you the scarecrow, huh?"

She runs a hand down his sloping shoulders and he does a double take as she passes out down into the hall. He checks his reflection self-consciously then is pissed that she has managed to make him even _think_ to do that. He clatters out into the hall after her, catching up with her in the kitchen as she moves out onto the porch.

"So how in hell are we travelling lil Miss 'I-don't-need-a-car'?" He clatters to a stop next to her on the rickety porch where she splays her hands out wide, like she is giving him a present. When he looks to her like she's lost her mind, she gestures harder, and he follows her gaze…

… out to the paddock, where that damn feisty mare is tossing her head about in the thawing snow. His heart sinks. He meets her gaze. Yup… she's serious.

"You suffered some head injury I don't know about?" He wrinkles his forehead at her, trying not to be too hard on her but unable to help himself, "This is your big idea? _A rabid pony?"_

Kate just smirks and pads over towards the barn as she rolls her eyes, "She's a mare Sawyer, and she's just the ticket to get us over the ridges and into Pigeon Forge."

He surfs in her wake, _"Pigeon Forge?_ You never said that's where we was heading!"

As she rattles open the barn door she laughs out loud, "What's wrong with it?!"

"You even _know_ what's in Pigeon Forge?" He watches righteously as she studies the piles of junk stacked from floor to ceiling in the airy barn.

"Pigeons?" She arcs an eyebrow, amused by his know it all tone. Then noting that he's highly unimpressed, she splays her hands, "Enlighten me!"

Kate proceeds to pile all manner of camping equipment into his arms as he speaks, eventually obscuring his face. "Well smartass, if six lanes of asphalt stuffed with corny attractions is your thing, hell, lets go! We can speed around on Go-Karts, play miniature golf with live bunnies and stuffed hillbillies, spend good money loading up on crap we don't want at the trashy outlets." She pulls a lantern aside in his arms so he can smirk at her, "Hell. There's even _Dollywood._"

Kate laughs, hiking down an old battered leather saddle… and then something gets in the way. Because as stupid and crazy as it sounds, she _wants_ to do those things with him. Ever since the girlfriend comment, she has harboured a very secret desire for them to be any other normal couple. Do stupid things like that. Be… _normal_.

His eyes lose a little of their twinkle, as he realizes he has struck on something, but is uncertain what. "But I guess we ain't got _time_ for that…"

The silence falls between them for a while, as they exit the barn, lock up and pad back towards the mare. As they saddle her up, and pack up the last of their camping gear both are uncertain how to break this strange sad silence which has fallen.

Wind whups through the chaff, lifting the hair from their faces. Everything seems very clear today, not least because the clouds have rolled back from the sky revealing deepest turquoise skies overhead. Clear and all too final somehow, as they stand ready to leave…

… and Sawyer suddenly knows they won't make it back here again. The notion strikes him from the blue, and the chilling truth of it sends a shiver through him. Christ, he knows he's crazy to feel this way, when he had never wanted to come here in the first place… but now, he honest to God doesn't want to leave. It's a wide world out there. A wide, increasingly _dangerous_ one at that.

Finally when there is no work left to act as a buffer, they face one another in the thawing snowy corral, and Kate suddenly takes his hands. In the crisp air of dawning spring, the warmth of them on his cold hands startles him, and he is surprised that after so many more intimate moments have come to pass, that she can still make his blood race by just taking his hands.

"Y'know what?" She says softly, "When we come back, we're _going_ through Pigeon Forge. You're _taking_ me to Dollywood, and we're gonna Go-Kart until we're sick," Her eyes sparkle, "And I'm gonna whup your _ass_ at crazy golf."

Bizarrely, Sawyer can't quite form an adequate comeback to that one. It's just so unexpected – this is the first time she has spoken even _tentatively_ of their uncertain future. And Dollywood aside, it's a future he wouldn't mind being in with her too.

"That a promise…?" He throws back challengingly, but he knows she reads his uncertainty.

"That's a promise, Scarecrow." She kisses his nose and ruffles his hair as he pulls back, rolls his eyes in beleaguered annoyance.

"Sure, let's leave the nicknames to the pro, huh?"

* * *

Kate and Sawyer set out across the Smokies as the sun rides high in the chilly blue sky. Sawyer had insisted that he ride the mare, telling her that his limbs were aching and he wanted a free ride – but she knew he was so adamant because he didn't trust the creature an inch, and wanted to be certain the thing wouldn't buck Kate off. Weighted down by the suitcase strapped onto the saddle, the mare wasn't nearly as skittish as they'd feared, but it still seemed to take obscene delight in riling Sawyer – at one opportune moment it plodded backwards into a tree and doused Sawyer in snow. 

As Sawyer bellowed and dug his heels in, Kate had to stifle her laughter as he indignantly thwacked the mare with a handful of snow. "Damn thing's got it in for me! I'm telling you this 'nice-as-pie' act's all a front, and if it turns around, bucks me down and breaks my back, _I hope to God you know it's your fault –"_

To his annoyance Kate only insists on holding the guide rope and leading him onwards. And as they reach the crest of the first hillside and look back down on the forest glades they had passed through, Kate's eyes rest for one last time on Shaconage. Looking back on the ranch. Kate feels like she is leaving home, and knows in reality they will never make it back here. The odds are stacked too highly against them even surviving long enough to find Garrett's wife.

They alternate from horseback to guide, and as dusk gently falls on their first night in the Great Smoky Mountain wilderness, they set up camp on a lowly mountainside with one of the most awe-inspiring views Kate has ever seen. Sawyer was less than happy about having to pitch a tent in the half light, on a mountainside in the freezing cold, but she coerced him into it with promises of how much warmer she would make him feel inside said tent. To say it went up like greased lightning afterwards would be an understatement.

And now they sit huddled together for warmth by their tiny campfire staring outwards over the sloping vista before them, as the mountains drown in mist. Its nothing new to Sawyer – hell, this was near the same view from his bedroom window – but Kate was damn near enraptured. They ate a measly supper of canned spaghetti (which Sawyer was beginning to suspect Kate lived off in her fugitive days) and then kicked back and holed on down inside the cramped tent.

It is so cold Kate can see her breath steaming before her face, and she's long lost the sensation in her fingers. But she determinedly forces down the shivers, rubs her hands together to stay warm as Sawyer drags the heavy sleeping bag over them and shunts down next to her. Instantly his bulk sends warm shudders through her as they hold onto one another tight. Something about feeling him so close and yet being shrouded in so many layers makes her want to tear his clothes off, freezing or not. And as she nestles into him, he laughs down with tired annoyance, "Your nose is freezing."

She giggles, sighing as all the weariness she had eluded on their days hiking begins to seep into her bones. She silences any other complaints he may have had by pressing a yielding kiss on his neck, near where her nose was chilling him. He wriggles a little, and she pulls back, pushing her hair from her face in puzzled glee.

"Are you…" Clarity clouds her face, "…you're _ticklish!"_

"What?" He narrows his eyes, as though she is questioning his very manhood, "I am _not!"_

"Yes you are!" She beams, pressing noisy kisses on his neck, the way a mother may blow fart kisses on a toddlers stomach. He shivers beneath her, wriggling to try and evade her lips but she's fast, tickles him mercilessly, "You're ticklish! _Ticklish!"_

"_Quit it –" _

"_Never!"_

"Freckles quit it! _Give it up!"_ He pulls her wrists up above her head as she straddles him, pulling her up and away from the offending area with sheer strength, and diverting her kisses to his mouth. Speaking around their combined breathless kisses he defies, "God – _damn it!_ – I'm – tellin' you – I – _ain't!"_

"Liar – liar – _pants – on – fire –"_

He dissolves into throaty laughter under her relentless assault of kisses and sighs grouchily into her mouth, "Your damn nose is like an ice hook."

"Honey you say all the right things," She grins, running her hands beneath his crackling waterproof and many sweaters to feel his hard stomach, and he shudders without an ounce of seriousness –

"Christ! Get your freezing _paws off –"_ But he pulls her closer all the same, pressing his own cold hands underneath her own sweater, around her waist and she cackles out loud, shrinking away. But he's having too much fun now, "Ho you don't like that huh? _Now tables are turned?"_

"Stop –" She can't remember the last time she laughed so hard, her sides are hurting her and she can't catch her breath –

"Whaddaya say?"

"_Quit it!"_

"I can't _hear_ you –"

"_Okay okay I quit!"_

He withdraws his cold hands as she collapses besides him, and for a moment as they catch their breath, they just stare into one another challengingly, as though daring the other to go for round two. Then Sawyer shakes his head. "Damnit, I'm handing it to you – gotta admire the lengths you'll go to prove a point."

"Why _thank_ you."

"Don't be thankin' me – only _you_ could get competitive over ways to stay warm Freckles."

"You got a better way, I take it…?" Kate leans into him, finally feeling warm, all ready to go when from nowhere a great whinnying tears through the air. They jump, burn searching into one another, then both jackknife to their feet as a heavy weight ploughs into the tent. Scrabbling backwards, Kate feels Sawyer drag her out of the way of the thrashing mare as it bellows and charges through their meagre campsite. They crash into the undergrowth in a tangle of limbs as he shields her from the battering hooves of the mare as it passes over them, and instinctively her hands fly to her stomach, protecting the unborn life inside her as Sawyer holds her down – but seconds after the horse has passed she sits beneath him, eyes flashing with worry –

"_You okay --?!"_

"_Never better!"_

And then she is immediately on her feet and approaching the horse, knowing she has to calm it as Sawyer sits, winded and hisses, "Hey! Damnit Freckles _stay put!"_

But Kate is bent as she moves in closer through the bracing night air, knowing she has to do this, has to reign the mare back in before it escapes. The horse backs away, huffing, batting their used tin cans and leftovers with its nose… then it slows, transfixed by Kate. She makes a soft sound in her throat as Sawyer watches in weary astonishment… then extends her hand and grips the lead reign.

But she is watching as the mare grumpily kicks at their leftovers, now scattered across the sloping hillside, and suddenly she has a horrible sinking feeling. Something had been gnawing at the back of her mind all evening, and its only now she realizes what.

Her eyes meet Sawyer's through the cold air, "Didn't you feed it?"

Sawyer cocks his head, "I thought you did!"

"Damnit Sawyer. This is exactly why we shouldn't have left the car –"

"You _suggested_ leaving it!"

And a dark fear stirs in Kate as the wind wails softly through the valley. A terrible notion strikes her, now. In four months time, would they be having this same conversation about the baby? It's ridiculous and yet it suddenly seems all too possible, And once that notion has sparked to life in her mind, she can't ignore it, it just builds, as though this stupid incident had somehow shed the light of truth on their whole situation.

"We can't even feed a _horse."_ This whitewash she is painting over her primal fears suddenly gets her, deep inside as she thinks of the tiny baby growing inside her, "We forgot about it, we left it out here in the snow, without any food. We're selfish, we're _awful people –"_

Holding his chest Sawyer stands, perhaps sensing that there is something else going on here entirely. His confusion evident he approaches her, "Its just a damn horse… there's grass! It wouldn't have starved –" He goes to help Kate with the lead reign but she pulls away from him and he looks down to her in anger, _"Why y'so upset?!"_

And she looks up to him in a bitter fury which has sprung up from deep inside, "- because we never think about anybody but ourselves! We're _incapable of it –"_

And now she can see he is losing his temper too, "You see _anybody_ _else_ here?"

And for the hundredth time she wonders if she should just tell him, if she could be strong enough to summon her courage and spit out those words. They are not the only two that matter in this equation anymore… there is another entity, one of perhaps more importance. Her baby… _their_ baby.

But she looks at him, winded and holding his side from protecting her, and thinks that he doesn't need to hear this tonight. Not like this, not thrown at him in the heat of an argument. And even though she has had months to brood over how to tell him, she suddenly realizes she hasn't got the faintest idea of how to start. So she drops her eyes, biting in emotion, and forces herself to tell him what he wants to hear.

"No."

"And you think anybody else is gonna take care of us?"

"No."

"Well then… guess that makes it just the two of us don't it?"

Biting her lip, Kate levels his gaze and states coldly, _"Yes."_

He nods, as though trying hard to lay this to rest, but she sees the flicker of hurt through his anger as he grits, "Would you try not to look so disappointed please?" Off her exasperated look he shrugs widely, flaring his eyes, the silent question clear – _what in hell are we fighting about now?!_

But he doesn't approach her, and his voice drops low, almost like a warning. "We don't need nobody else Kate. Where's your head at…?!" His brow creases, not liking the way she won't meet his eyes now, "What are you _thinking_…"

Kate wordlessly turns and begins to lead the mare down the darkened hillside, leaving him to call with frayed patience, "Where are you _going?"_

"I'm taking her to the lake. She might be thirsty." Kate doesn't look back, and to his horror Sawyer thinks her voice sounds all choked, like he really has hurt her somehow.

"There's snow right here – _everywhere_!" He yells, unable to help himself.

This last, and Kate is just a voice in the cold black, "Go back to bed, Sawyer."

* * *

At the waters edge of the tiny stream, Kate leans into the mares midsection as it drinks and frantically presses her stomach. She has never been more hopelessly confused. Should she want to feel the baby kicking back? What was really better for it? Did it make her a bad person for wanting to bring a child into this fucked up way of life, or did it make her worse for never wanting it in the first place?! 

"I didn't mean to forget about you," She breathes, rubbing the horses neck with numb hands, her voice flat and shuttered with sadness, "But I never asked for this, I never asked to look after you, _I can't… _we're the worst kind of people in the world. I don't even know how much longer we'll be in it. I don't know anything. I'm so stupid. I'm so, so stupid. _I don't want you to pay for me being stupid…"_

Suddenly her stomach jerks, and she gasps in shock, hands instinctively gripping her midsection as she sinks to the cold shore of the stream… and it comes again, that same undeniable jerk, as though her insides are shifting about… and then a wild beam breaks on her face. _The baby is kicking…! _

The blood rockets through her veins as her heart pounds at the realisation. And whatever else is happening right now, whatever her misconceptions, her doubts, anxieties are, she sits for those moments, just wraps her arms around her waist and experiences the revelation, the very real movement of her baby inside her.

* * *

Sawyer pitches the tent for the second damn time that night, and refuses to think about what in hell is going through Kate's mind. Once he clambers back inside the tent and straightens things out, he notices that Kates backpack has been thrown open in their frantic scuffle to get out. He gruffly crams her possessions back inside, when his knuckles crack against the spine of a book, jammed under the sleeping bag. Wincing in annoyance he pulls out a scuffled black notebook, the kind with a small lock which binds the pages closed. Is it Kates? He never had the fugitive queen down for doing something so stupidly obvious as keeping a diary… 

Well maybe this little book o' wisdom might shed a little light onto her current behaviour. He rifles through the spill of junk from Kate's backpack, picks out a bobby pin and makes quick work of jimmying the little padlock. Damn her. If she wouldn't tell him what he wanted to know, he would get the information any which way he could. He'd never been a stickler for standards –

As he cracks open the journal, his eyes rove over the front page. None of it makes a blind bit of sense – looks like its written in _gibberish_…

And as he frowns over the pages feeling like he's been tricked, the tent flap rustles and Kate climbs in, brushing the snow off her caked boots. Caught out, Sawyer doesn't try to hide what he's doing, instead holds up the book and takes pleasure in the rosy glow in her cheeks draining to white as she slowly freezes. And she doesn't react as he expects. He was ready to fend off a bodytackle, maybe even a _clothesline_, but what he doesn't expect is just for her to… well, _stare_.

"How could you look…?" Her voice is even, betraying nothing, infuriating him. And she just extends her hand for the book. Something about the way she is looking at him, as though somehow subtly changed makes him hand it back to her. She seems like whatever had made her so scared before has been laid to rest for tonight, for which he is at least a little grateful for.

Not unkindly he sighs, "I'm sorry, seeing as we were right in the middle of my damn past, is it too much to wonder a little about yours?"

"This is private," She folds the books into her backpack, "These are my most private things Sawyer –" He knows the rejection in her voice. Knows that although she may be confronting their situation together, that she will still not allow him the knowledge he craves, and she drives him _insane_ –

"News flash – that place we holed up in for the past month? That whole _place_ was my most private thing!" But she is gritting her teeth in that infuriatingly obstinate way she has, and he can feel his blood beginning to slow broil. Quietly he throws at her, "I thought we were past this…"

And she just looks to him tiredly and hands him the journal, with a real sincerity that he doesn't expect. "If it's that important to you, read it. Go on… I'll let you."

But instead of answering her, Sawyer pulls his jacket back on. And as she watches, he growls, "Y'know what? Keep it. I don't wanna _read_ it."

"_What?"_ In genuine confusion, Kate looks after him as he pushes by her to unzip the tent flap. She grips his arm as he does so, willing him not to do this, not to go –

But he pulls his arm back and to her shock he grabs her own wrists, pushes her off him. _Hard_. And as he breathes across at her heavily, he is raw. _Real_. And before he can even begin to apply any kind of censor to his words, they are flying out, spiteful, stinging and cold. "You're somethin' _else_. This ain't about reading your _funny pages_ Kate, you think I give a damn about reading _your biography –"_

"No?! Then am I missing something here? _What is it about –?!"_

"This's about me realizing that the woman I love is just like them _words."_ He grits bitterly, "Foreign. _A stranger."_

Kate actually flinches. Like he has reached out and slapped her hard. Her eyes widen, and he can see every fleck of amber green in her eyes, the emotion thrumming in her neck as she breathes, "You… you _what…?"_

As Kate watches him, Sawyer realizes his slip-up… and laughs humourlessly. Shakes his head, hair covering his tired eyes as he bites down hard on his lip, voice detached with distant resentment. "Yeah… yeah, you got me. Good for you."

She moves aside for him as he crawls out of the tent, watching after his form. So many emotions are burning through her that she is unsure which one to run with. So instead, she follows him outside, pulling her coat about her against the cold to find him propped against a tree, looking out over the dark wilderness.

The sheer solitude of this place hits her as she sits beside him for awhile, as they gather their thoughts. She remembers how he told her about growing up here, playing his lonely games in his dens, pretending he was the last survivor in a world gone mad. But this isn't a game anymore… it really does seem like they are the last people left on the earth. She tries to take his hand, but he pulls it away.

"I don't wanna _read_ about you..." He states after the silence has become unbearable. And the look in his eyes is so utterly foreign that for a moment he scares her. She doesn't recognize the man before her. "I want you to look me in the eyes… and tell me what's in there, that you're so damn _scared_ of. Have the courage to say it. Do it."

Her eyes meet his… and Sawyer knows what subject is going to be broached. It is one thing to feel love, to think it – but to _admit_ it, to finally speak those words is binding. Its not like whispering sly words in the ears of marks, always out for his own gain. There is no gain here… only a hopeless fall if she should reject him.

"How can you love a murderer?" She murmurs.

Running his hands over his hair and letting a rush of pent up air out, telling himself over and over to give her space, give her time, he breathes, "Damned if I know… but I do."

And then she rests her hands on his cold face and kisses him. He resists at first, holding the grudge, but as she gently works his mouth open he receives her, thawing. And when she pulls back, rests her head against his, she takes his hands and he doesn't stop her this time.

As Sawyer watches, he sees a remarkable change happening in Kate. Her shoulders first tense, then roll, the strain easing out… and finally, she reveals the diary. Lays it on his knees and opens the pages to reveal that gibberish. The journal is _full_ of it.

"When I was kid, me and Tom… we wrote letters to each other. In code. Helped pass the time at summer camp. We had to be real careful – his folks were strict Christians, and if my dad ever found any of mine… well. We had to be clever. Make up a code nobody'd be able to crack."

Sawyer is watching her carefully – its like watching a flower gradually uncurling its petals to receive the sunlight, its that slow. But she leans in closer, nestling in the crook of his legs, running her finger over the pages of her time-worn journal. "Its easy when you get used to it. The letters of the words are represented by the letter which comes 8 letters after it in the alphabet. Okay?"

"Eight?"

"Eight. My lucky number." She says as though offended he doesn't know. But he is staring at the pages, feeling rapidly like she's pulling his leg.

"_Q pibm ug abmxlil…?!"_ He stutters uncertainly.

"I hate my stepdad." She translates, and he slowly meets her gaze. She is looking up at him with that pained expression, and he knows he's responsible.

"Lets save that bedtime story for another night, huh?" He sighs tiredly, knowing not to push for anymore tonight. And as she stands to move back inside the tent, her next three words ring out through the sharp night air,

"I do too."

He turns doubtfully, certain his ears are playing cruel tricks. "What?"

But she is looking at him with a wide open vulnerability which instantly melts all hostility from his heart. Her voice is thick with emotion, eyes sparkling with tears she will not shed…

"I do too." Like a child confessing a mortal sin, she meets his gaze and grins softly, "I love you Sawyer. Always have."

Absurdly Kate is reminded of the wedding on the Oceanic Princess, how they had been on that aisle and in the situation, but denied the right and the courage to step forth, knot hands and say the final words, _'I do.'_ But in a way, the words have finally been spoken a world away, in this dreamscape of nightmares and beauty. And as they settle down for the second time for the night, Kate pulls the covers high and sees an expression she has never known on Sawyer's face before. Contentment… _fulfilment_.

That night is one Kate will never forget. Because even though she has lain with many a man before, and even with Sawyer many times, tonight is truly the first time she feels she has ever really made love to somebody. From the moment he eases inside her until they lay besides on another spent, feeling him around her, on her, inside and within completes her. With every movement of him, every flicker of skin on skin, hands lacing through hair, lips flickering over lips, she feels her final barriers slipping away, breaking down into a state of surrender. And when he brings her to the brink, she is gripping him tight, pressing her face into his working shoulder, and she feels the tears on her cheeks, as the release hits her, release in so many more ways that she ever imagined could exist.

* * *

As dawn begins to tinge the sky a deep russet red, Sawyer is smoking as he watches the dying embers of their campfire burn down. By all rights he should be sleeping well, but he had been pulled from sleep by the mother of all headaches which had snuck up on him out of nowhere. He had fed the horse the last of his breakfast, feeling like he couldn't quite keep his own down. He hoped to God he wasn't coming down with something again, not out here. He stares a little harder at the picture in his wallet, one which he had long forgotten he possessed, but had glimpsed when Kate took his ID card from his wallet. 

_I never loved the bitch, I don't care if she cries a damn ocean, you're wasting your time –_

That baby face stares back at him. _Clementine. _To say that he had thought of this babies face often would be a lie. He had tried to block her out of his mind over the year since Cassidy had told him of her existence, all that time ago in that stinking prison visiting room.

_Now do you see what you've done…?_

For the thousandth time he squints into that child's face, trying to make out if he can see a resemblance, if she could really be his. He turns the dog-eared photograph over in his cold hands. The pencil inscription is nearly faded away, but he can still make out the name _Clementine Mathers/ Ford._

_Everything you've ever done has consequences Sawyer_

He folds the photograph away, his headache kicking up a notch as Ethan's voice rings through his mind… and his hand lingers over his note, tucked into his wallet. Pulling it out, his eyes rove over those familiar words, words burned into his memory long years ago. _Dear Mr Sawyer…_

_This is what the consequences are. You have to understand. You don't help people Sawyer. It's not in your nature… you kill people._

… but then he hears a rustling above him on the ridge. And as jerks from his thoughts, he grips his gun close and turns. Scaling the hillside keeping to the trees, he skirts around to finds the reasons for his strange headache sitting on an overhanging rock above him.

Ana-Lucia and Boone sit, staring out at the sunrise. What in hell these two ghosts could possibly have to talk about is a mystery to Sawyer, but then company must be hard to come by in Limbo. As he approaches them, his mind begins to whir, the headache picking up strength, pounding. And as the two ghosts wordlessly shuffle along on their rock, he sits besides them and appraises them critically. Boone still has those thick dark shades on, but now he has acquired an LA Lakers Baseball cap and a long trench coat which makes him look like the invisible man. Which probably really isn't far off, under the circumstances. Ana is looking ever her pissed off self, and Sawyer can sympathize, if she's been dealing with Boone's company long.

"Well if it ain't Pinky and Perky," He sighs. "Two visits at once? You realise you're giving me a headache?" Ana only rolls her eyes, and turns outwards as Boone nods and gestures something. Sawyer frowns, "What, you handing out the silent treatment now Metro?"

"He doesn't talk anymore," Ana sighs in a harried voice, "Lost his vocal chords now, I guess. He just _points_, gestures. You're a pig for keeping him here."

"I am _not_ keeping him here!" Sawyer protests indignantly.

"Yes you are!" Ana retorts angrily, "So get your finger out your ass and tell him where his sister is already, 'caus all this sign language shit's makin' me _bug_-_eyed_."

Sawyer clenches his jaw, "Seein' as you asked so _nice, _Lucy…" He turns to Boone who extends his palms questioningly. "Saw your sister. Get your ass up to those pearly gates, boy. Git yourself gone. She did her thing. She's heading on and that's all I know."

Boone reacts with crazed excitement. Lurching from his seat on the rock he staggers up to Sawyer and flings his arms around him, bopping up and down enthusiastically. Sawyer squirms out of Boones cheerful clinch awkwardly, "Hey! Hey – _quit it!"_

And as Boone spins away, he smiles widely at both of them, and backing away, he walks _straight back off the edge of the cliff. _

Quickly lunging forth Sawyer swipes to catch Boones hand – but as he reaches the edge of the hillside, he looks down to see that there is _no one there to save_. The drop is far and high, and it is totally empty. Boone has completely gone, it really was that fast.

As cool dawn mist blows about them, Ana-Lucia indifferently strides to a stop besides Sawyer, glances aloofly over the hillside and shrugs. And Sawyer sighs in awed amazement, "Gay as pink ink…"

So now Boone has hightailed it off this mortal coil, Sawyer is left with the ever-lovable Ana-LuLu. Crazily enough he wishes he were left with Shannon – he got the horrible notion that Ana-Lucia took very real pleasure in haunting him and driving him out of his mind.

"So. Word is you were in Limbo not so long ago." Ana raises a satirical eyebrow, "What, not even a phone call?"

"Didn't plan on staying long," Sawyer growls, "And forgive me for not wanting to rake up old ghosts, Pudding."

"You had a hard time there I hear."

Sawyer narrows his eyes at her, but just before he lets rip with a comeback, something stops him. Something that has been playing on his mind since he awoke from the mindlock… a question that badly needs answering. He clears his throat, and sparks another cigarette. He doesn't know when he started to smoke again, but it feels good, gives him strength.

"When I was out of it, y'know, I…" Gathering himself, he grits, "I _saw_ things. Things I know to be true… and things I ain't so sure about. Things that might be. Things that might already be so…"

He looks to Ana-Lucia and notes her apathetic air has not shifted. "Fortune telling wasn't one of my strong points."

"Thank you Rambina, I'm well _aware_ of that. What, d'you get short-changed on the sensitivity too?"

"You wanna lecture me on that, Mr _'I-guess-that-takes-cuddling-off-the-menu?'_" She laughs in irritation, "Caus' _that_ was real smooth. Real dash of southern comfort right there."

A little thrown, Sawyer momentarily doesn't understand what in hell that was supposed to mean. Then he gets it, and remembers how that day in the jungle had played out… "That was a long time ago," He mumbles.

"Not so long." She says softly.

And now that _really_ blindsides him. He draws back a little from her and retorts angrily, "Don't be givin' me the gosh-golly eyes! It was a con all round. Well done! You conned me, there weren't no feelings in what we did on that jungle floor sweetheart and you know it – It never meant nothing."

But throughout his impassioned rant, he has been monitoring the change in Ana's face from outright defiance to something else. Something he can't pin down, because he's never seen it on her face before. That sends alarm bells ringing, and Lord, he doesn't like alarm bells. They make his head ache even more. Damn her. "Ana…"

She meets his gaze, and now he recognizes the look she is trying so hard to hide – it is _sadness_. The Ice Maiden, who had kicked him where it hurt countless times, who would look at him like she would love to rip his head off, actually looks _upset_. And all he can breathe is the hollow words, ringing out like words of warning, "It never did…"

"_Screw you_ –"

"We already been there –"

A ripple of disgust passes over her face, hardening it up again and she rolls her eyes, "Don't kid yourself."

This denial hangs for a moment, because neither know what else to say, how to get this conversation back on track… and finally Sawyer sighs. "I'm sorry." She wont look at him, just clenches her jaw and looks outward. The sun now burns bright red on the horizon as he breathes with difficulty, "I told Kate I wished it meant something, okay… don't know if you care. But I think I do. I was your last screw in this world and it meant nothing. Ana, I wish it did."

And he waits for awhile, just kind of letting that sink in for her. And when he begins to think that she won't answer him, she speaks softly. "It meant something. That's all that matters." He meets her gaze as she turns back to him finally, all traces of vulnerability gone as she squares her jaw at him and knocks his shoulder with hers. "So what's the deal?"

"Come again?"

"You're keeping me around for a reason, whether you know it or not –" She sighs, "So what is it you need? Those things you saw – what were they?"

This is harder than he thought it would be. To verbalize what he had seen would have been hard enough to do to Kate, whom he was getting closer to. But to tell this kind of thing to Rambina was another thing altogether. So he cocks his head and says cautiously, "Old flame of mine… she… I want to hook up with her again. Check her out."

"That wasn't an answer," Ana says directly.

"Don't ask the question again." Sawyer says evenly, and Ana's brow knits uncertainly, perhaps gauging whether she should press him on this or not. She eventually decides to run with a different tact.

"What's her name?"

"Cassidy. Cassidy Mathers – and – her daughter." Sawyer braces himself, "_Clementine_."

"Two?" Ana takes this in as a strange wind begins to stir the trees about them.

"_Two."_ Sawyer affirms, his throat suddenly dry.

"You want me to find them for you? Run some checks? Could probably still get access to my portable laptop, run the basics –"

"I want you to look in Limbo." Sawyer studies his hands hard, unable to look at her as he finishes, "I don't think she's here anymore."

And Ana meets his eyes through the dawn shadows, knowing instinctively why this is hard for him. He never expected to see a look in her eyes which mirrors his own – like she knows his pain, has quietly felt it too –

And that wind picks up all at once, as from out of nowhere a great roaring sound whickers through the calm morning. A beam of white light lances through the tree canopy and Sawyer immediately grabs Ana, pulls her back with a crack –

_-- as a helicopter wails through the sky over their heads._ A _police_ helicopter.

"Get away!" Sawyer hisses at Ana as the Copter rides high in the sky, its searchlights soaring over the mountainside.

"What about you guys?!"

"Just GO!"

And as Sawyer runs along the incline, keeping to the shadows, he sees Kate backing into the shadows nearby, the noise having woken her. Immediately she tackles him, shoves his pack into his arms and drags him breathlessly deeper into the forest –

"Wait – the horse – we gotta go back –"

"We can't go back –" Kate hisses, dragging him along faster, faster, "The eyes track motion. If the helicopters out for us, we gotta hide in a bush or up in a tree rather than running it out on horseback –"

"We can't just leave it – we can't hike through these woods! _Not with no shelter –"_

But she pushes him hard and they collapse into the undergrowth as the searchlights roll their way again, mere meters from their location. As soon as they have swept away, Kate is on her feet, bracing herself against the tree trunk, "Give me a leg up –"

Kate steps into Sawyers hands and he hikes her up so she can grab onto the lowest hanging branch. Lithely she swings up into the foliage and swings a hand down for Sawyer. He finds a foothold and grips her hand, clambering up next to her seconds before the lights sweep back towards them again. They cling to the tree tops for an unknown length of time, as Kate watches furtively through the treeline. Every fibre in her being urges her to go back for the mare. But their ticket to freedom is probably at this moment being swarmed on by Feds, and she knows she can't. Suddenly Sawyer gestures to Kate – and as she turns, she sees the helicopter coming down at the base of the hillside. _Their camp has been spotted. _

"They're outta the sky, come on –" She breathes, shimmying down off her branch and dropping to the ground heavily. He follows her quickly, and trails behind her as she darts in the opposite direction from the camp. After they have crossed the forest and clambered up a slippery, icy ridge, they pass into a rocky alcove where they collapse, dropping their packs and resting a moment.

"D'you leave anything could tie us to the camp?" Sawyer huffs, trying to catch his breath.

"I grabbed what I could, where were you?" Her eyes spear him angrily, and for the first time he sees she is furious. Rounding on him, she slaps out at his chest, fists battering him, "I wake up to find you gone and there's _cops in the sky_ – you're so _stupid_, I thought they _caught you –"_

"They didn't –" He breathes in shock, gripping her and trying to deflect the blows. She fights him off at first but he grasps her wrists and pulls her close. Finally giving in as he cups the back of her head, she stills against him as he whispers in disbelief, _"They didn't."_

She pulls back and looks at him, and only now seems to really accept that they have escaped capture by moments… then sniffs his jacket uncertainly.

"Have you been _smoking_ again?" Her nose wrinkles in distaste.

Sawyer slumps his shoulders, "You really wanna have this conversation here?" He hands her pack to her, strapping his back on, and hands her a gun. Both armed and ready, they exchange looks.

"You sure you're up to this?" Sawyer says to Kate, "Its gonna be a helluva long days trek."

"Anything you can do." She smiles, a twinkle of competitiveness creeping back into her, and he laughs, as they make their way cautiously onwards towards the peaks of the Great Smoky Mountains.

* * *

They hiked all night. With the constant threat of the helicopters in the sky overhead, they never felt safe enough to quit. Nowhere was safe. The only thing they could trust was the grips of the guns in their hands and the steadily moving earth beneath their feet. They would rest for maybe half an hour before starting out again, the helicopter presence forcing them to trek deeper into the woods than they would have liked to retain the coverage of the tree canopy. As the sun set around five o'clock there was heavy snowfall which made it nearly impossible to retain a sense of direction. But Kate swore she knew how to use a compass, even when Sawyer swore blind that they'd travelled down the same stream three times. Tired, exhausted and near to freezing, as darkness fell that night it could have not been on an atmosphere further removed from the night before. Their brief sanctuary whilst camping seemed fragile and faraway, and Kate knows she had been a fool to think it could ever have lasted. 

They stumbled across the state line into North Carolina by four am of the next day.

As they half walked half fell down that final incline towards the snowy road, they had taken one another's hands, almost as if in silent atonement for the leaden silence of the past hard hours. Upon making it over the line into North Carolina, they slumped together into the snow of the verge and watched the distant lights of those faraway helicopters through the falling snow.

An hour later, and they are walking down a deserted street in a misty backwater town, looking for anyplace that they can crash. Sawyer knows how tired Kate must be when she merely gestures widely at their passing surroundings and mumbles something about being on the outskirts of a tourist town called Cherokee, and that she liked Monument Valley more. He takes her pack from her, to which she puts up only a small fight.

Noplace is open at 5am, but they come across a small barn which is blessedly snow-free and inhabited only by a few nesting chickens. It smells sweet in here after the alpine freshness of the mountains, like straw and toasted hay. They bunk down in a haystack and find it blessedly warm after the freezing wilderness they had just endured. They fall into deep sleep surrounded by the soft clucking of the chickens and the rush of wind through the rafters.

At nine that morning they are slump in a small diner on a quiet back street. The truckers have mostly cleared out now, and from their booth in back, Kate and Sawyer study the menu's… and the last of their money.

Kate finishes emptying her wallet onto the table. A few dollars are all she has left. Biting her nails, she meets his eyes. Sadly, he takes a drag on his cigarette and slides his wallet over to her. There's only thirty dollars left, now.

After the waitress has taken their orders, Kate rifles through his wallet absently, dropping cards to the table. "Gas debit cards can also be used to find us. Telephone calling cards can be used to find us. In fact, any magnetic card with your name or the name of someone you know can be used to find our general area. If the FBI are involved in searching for us, they can pinpoint our location within minutes of you using a magnetic card…" She seems to run out of steam, her usual method of going into fugitive lockdown not alleviating her anxiety. She just sounds tired, and Sawyer prompts her on, just to keep her talking, keep her from her thoughts.

"That so…?"

"We shouldn't even think about hanging onto a credit card for an emergency. What we don't have can't tempt us to give our location away, right?"

"Right."

"When we're cold and hungry, we'll be tempted to use them. So we should destroy them before that happens…" She holds a lighter beneath his old gas card, and he just watches. Something about this act saddens him – again he wonders how many more bridges they will have to burn on this journey.

She finds another bank card, but something about this one gives her pause. The lighters flame flickers off.

"What's this?"

"It's a bankcard, genius." He stubs out his cigarette, sighing.

"No it's not." Her eyes narrow as she reads the small print on the plastic, "It's a trust fund." Off his look, she cocks her head. "Since when have you ever been forwards thinking enough to put away money in a trust fund?!"

"Maybe I was planning for my future." Sawyer sighs defensively, plucking the slip of plastic from her hand, "Forget it. It's an account I can't touch."

Kate shrugs, returning to her own thoughts. "Well if it's been frozen, it's useless to us. Best forget you ever had it."

The waitress arrives with their breakfasts, and they eat for a period in drained silence. Pasty Cline clicks onto the jukebox. They get free refills of bitter black coffee, and something is eating away at Sawyer. Finally, he rests his fork down and sighs, "How long'd you think we can keep up this honesty deal?"

"Huh?" Kate startles from her thoughts, as she pushes the remains of her meal about on her plate.

"Ain't natural for us," Sawyer points with his knife, "Admit it. You tell me when I looked at your diary, that your first instinct wasn't to _lie_ to me about it, and I'll shout you pancakes. With _syrup_ if you're convincing."

Kate smiles softly, eyes warming a little as she squeezes his hand briefly. "Guilty as charged. But I didn't."

Sawyer holds her gaze long after she has resumed eating, then closing his eyes, he says simply, "Its not frozen."

Kate glances to him quizzically, "What?"

"The trust fund," He grits, opening his eyes and looking anywhere but at her, "I'm not accessing it because I _can't_. I'm not accessing it, because… I don't _want_ to."

He feels her stare upon him, and when he can take the silence no longer, he meets her gaze challengingly. But she just looks honest to goodness _puzzled. _"Wait a minute… you have money set aside for your future that you _don't wanna touch?"_ She speaks evenly, unsure why he has never spoken of this before, "Did you ever stop to think we might not _have_ a future if we don't use it?"

"I'm not enjoying this whole honesty game," Sawyer gestures jerkily to the waitress for a refill, "Lets quit while we're ahead huh –?"

"Sawyer." Kate rests her hand on his, and he looks away. But he can feel those eyes burning a hole through him, willing him to return her look. He can't though, and her words are falling on deaf ears as she explains softly, "We need that money. We… we really, _really need it."_

"You won't like the truth." His words are hollow, and he has grown very still she notices, as though bracing himself for the worst. Suddenly she doesn't like the direction of this conversation. Not at all. But it's too late to back out now.

"I don't like the lie any better," She says in an unwavering voice, "I'll take my chances."

The waitress bustles over and refills Sawyers mug, and all the while neither Kate nor Sawyer break out of their fixed positions. Finally, when the waitress has receded out of earshot, Sawyer exhales heavily and mutters, "Fund's not mine."

"You're not making any sense –"

But something is working through Sawyer, some revelation is travelling up through him. He squirms in his seat, rolls his shoulders… and then finally shaking his head, he takes a deep breath and says, "It's for my daughter."

At first, the word seems so foreign to Kate that for moments, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. And then when it finally does, a hundred different thoughts spark off each other, vying for her to run with. But the overriding one, the one which makes her heart fall heavy, is disappointment… and a fear that he may have been right. He had told her he loved her, but he had called her a stranger – and it worked both ways. She believed she could grow used to accepting the Sawyer before her, occasionally even glimpsing his uglier side, the darker side which she feared was under there someplace… but their whole relationship comes back to lies, and that is something she knows she can never grow used to. It's never-ending. Just when she thinks she has finally allowed him to breach her barriers, he tells her something like this, and her instinctive reaction is to retreat far back inside again.

"Your what…?"

"_My daughter."_ He repeats stonily, meeting her eyes finally and she glimpses infinite sadness in those faded blue denim eyes.

"_You_ have a daughter…?"

Something hurts him on her repetition of that word… and to her utter shock, she sees he is choked, fighting off emotions he never wanted to face as his mouth works, trying to form words… finally he clenches out, "I don't _know_ anymore…"

Something about his reply triggers anger in her, but she forces it down hard, wishing they were someplace less public, someplace she could yell and vent. But here, she _must_ remain calm. _Collected_. But that doesn't make it easy, and the anger thrums in her voice, "Either you do or you _don't_. Which is it?"

He is looking around like he is unsure how he has been backed into this conversation, looking for an escape as he gestures about, "I thought I did, but… when I was in that crazy ass mind lock, Ethan _showed_ me somethin'. Showed me what… what happened to the kids mother." He meets Kate's eyes, and she sees quiet hatred there for pushing him to this, to reveal himself in this way as his voice grows ragged, "She got shot. Killed, _murdered_ by somebody out to get me. Now I don't know if that's true. But I'm scared it is. That Cassidy – that was the mother – that I got her killed… and our baby… _I don't know what happened to her."_

He shakily tries to light another cigarette to no avail, can't get the flame to catch. She tries to take it from him, but he glares to her fiercely and continues trying as he finishes, "When you told me what happened to your old boyfriend? Tom? You looked me in the eye, and you said to me, _'you don't know what it feels like'. _To be responsible, to watch somebody go down, when you know it should have been you, when you would have given _anything_ for it to have been _you_. I watched Cassidy. _I know."_

She catches his hands in hers, stops him in his tracks. For a moment, they just sit in that silence, holding onto one another as the jukebox wails hopelessly cheery music behind them. Slowly, Kate takes his lighter and to his surprise, she lights his cigarette for him. And although she meets his gaze unwaveringly, she cant keep the tremble from her voice, "Why didn't you _tell_ me…"

He exhales smoke and rubs his eyes tiredly, "We never told each other _nothing_. Not really."

"But a daughter?" Kate laughs in disbelief, "Sawyer, that's not _nothing_…"

"And its not the kinda thing you slip into conversation!" He splays his hands in protest, "Would that be _before_ the brain surgery, the voices, or when we were running for our lives? Maybe when I was in a damn coma, or when your psychotic boyfriend chained me to a table? Yeah, there were some real golden opportunities there!"

Kate takes this on the chin, well aware of the fact suddenly that she has no right to any moral high ground, not when she is still hiding secrets of her own. Gathering her strength, she breathes evenly, "What was her name?"

He registers a degree of surprise, like the question has unnerved him. And as she watches him, she realizes that he can barely answer. Like if he says the childs name it is somehow binding, like admitting she is real, this final admittance of the truth. "Clementine." Off their silence, he looks up and Kate notices for the first time that he appears to have aged overnight. The sun scorched lines around his eyes are deeper, the worry lines on his forehead stronger as he shrugs unenthusiastically, "What, no jokes? Oh my darlin'_, oh my darlin' Clementine?_ No…?"

"No…" Kate smiles softly, and after a moment comments, "It means merciful though. Clemency. Right?"

And at that, Sawyer laughs. But it is completely devoid of any humour, as his eyes meet hers, "Well you know me Freckles. Wouldn't know much about mercy."

* * *

They hop a freight and wind up in Wisconsin for the night, where they drop their last twenty bucks on a fleabag motel. This area is a rundown, drug infested part of the neighbourhood, where ambulances shriek by at all hours of the night, gunshots, and people screaming while they moved into the room. The very real problem of being stranded so far from Canada with no money hangs in the air, along with Sawyers revelations of Clementine. The motion of travelling had so far eliminated the need to address these issues, but now they have passed a couple of states away from where the Feds had last sighted them, and have holed up for the night, the atmosphere hangs heavy. Sawyer assures Kate he will figure out a way for them to eat, and deflects her questions as he proceeds to shower, and put on clean clothes. 

Leaving her in the motel room, he hikes a couple of blocks to the nearest fancy hotel, where he spends a half hour walking the halls and gathering the leftovers that the guests had left outside on their trays for room service to clear up. He'd had periods in his youth where he'd lived rough, and this was one of the oldest tricks in the book – a growing boy could live pretty healthily on other folks leftovers. He'd had no qualms about it then. But now, his pride stings as he stuffs boxes of mini-cereal and packs of milk into his pack – because it shouldn't be this way. He shouldn't still be pulling these same tricks twenty years later. And he had promised Kate he would buy her something nice at the next town they passed through, and this sure as hell wasn't what he had in mind. She deserved more than this…

As he dodges through the snowy street, deflecting two prostitutes who tout him seductively for business and a pusher who asks him what his fix is, he braces himself against the cold, goes to cross the street when something catches his eye. Something very out of place in this desperate, foul neighbourhood.

A tall brunette pushes a battered stroller along the slushy sidewalk across the street. And as Sawyer's heart kicks in his chest, time seems to stand still. The pusher at his sleeve, yammering about drugs seems very far away… as the woman turns towards him. What starts in Sawyers chest as a mighty bellow escapes only as a rush of breath… _"Cass…"_

And as she meets his gaze, he finds his voice and his senses all at once, and is barrelling across the street. _"CASS! Cassidy –"_

She smiles in disbelief as he coasts to a stop in the falling snow, the streetlights glancing off the raincover of the buggy. She pushes back the hood of her rain slicker and breathes in awe, "Oh my God… what are you _doing_ here?"

"What am I doing here?!" He shakes his head in shock, "Seems that's something you wanna tell _me_ creampuff!" He furiously tries to keep his gaze from falling to the buggy, resisting the urge to pull back the rain cover and finally see Clementine, "You… when d'you leave Baton Rouge?"

"Awhile ago," Cassidy looks away evasively, her husky voice still having the power to chill Sawyer, "I heard about the money you put aside for Clem. You didn't have to do that."

"Can I… can I see her?" He doesn't honestly know whether he is feeling sick because of nerves or excitement. Something about the way the snow flecks in Cassidy's hair and the streetlights blare in halos from the buggy make his insides queasy.

"We never needed you, Sawyer." She breathes gritting her jaw, her soft eyes flickering uneasily about the dangerous street, "You're many things. Lover, liar, conman, murderer. Many wonderful, awful things. But you could never be a father. Don't, _for one second_, ever believe that. I'm sorry."

She turns the buggy away and starts up the street. For a moment, he is too stunned to even move, then he turns after her and gets in front of the buggy, forcing her to stop.

"Hey – hey!" He gestures down at the rain cover, "I might be all those pretty names you called me, but I'm still her father – I gotta right to see her, _to meet her just once –"_

He reaches to lift the rain cover but Cassidy lunges forth, blocking him angrily.

"What makes you so sure you're her father Sawyer? What makes you so sure it wasn't all a con? That Sawyer Ford, the great conman didn't finally get conned himself?"

"It wasn't a con." He grits furiously.

"You don't know that," She whispers, a sad smile on her face.

"I know because I can feel it." Sawyer defies her with a growing fire, "I know she's mine _now move –" _He batters her aside and wrenching up the raincover, his eyes fall inside the buggy. Its one of those cheap ass ones with a teddy bear print inside, the print worn away in places from use, with frayed red straps. _And it's totally empty. _

He looks up to Cassidy, unable to hide his hurt. This is just too much. "You conned me…"

"No," Cassidy backs away, shaking her head in defeat, "No, it wasn't a con Sawyer."

"Then where is she?" Sawyer's voice breaks,_ "Cassidy where is she?"_

"She's dead Sawyer," Cassidy meets his eyes, "We both are. You killed us."

* * *

An unknown amount of time later, Sawyer sits on the fire escape of the liquor store where he just lifted a very large bottle of bourbon from. The bottle is nearly empty, his legs dangle through the railings, and he can't breathe. The whisky contorts his stomach and the pain cuts off all air from his chest. He had smoked his last cigarette hours ago, and now the only thing left for it is to keep drinking, keep falling into the black hole which is rapidly engulfing everything around him. 

Just when he thinks he is all cried out, another wave hits him, a wall of pain, and impossibly harder than the last. He can't think straight, can't get his mind right. This is worse than anything he's ever done. Duckett was mixed up in the rackets, his parents embroiled in their own marital struggles, and to be responsible for those deaths was hard enough to bear. But this is on another level. How had Gordie done it? He had seen in the mindlock how he had shot Cassidy, but Clem, his little girl… how had she died? He wishes violently that he could have seen, because his mind is in overdrive, is dreaming up all kinds of horrific things, won't give him reprieve.

And when he hears a quiet creak next to him, he turns to see Ana sitting next to him, legs dangling through the icy railings next to his. He has no idea how long she has been there for. Furiously he scrubs at his eyes, hating her for seeing him break this way, but the liquor has dulled his defence mechanisms and he can't get a grip on himself –

"I'll bet your getting a kick outta this," He chokes in vitriolic wrath, chugging back on the burning bourbon, wincing as it sears through him, "Some payback huh? _It feel good?"_

But Ana only studies her hands, as though bracing herself against him. Her tone is level and maddeningly controlled. "You asked me to find her for you. That's what I did."

"Don't you gimmie that _bullshit_ Ana!" He cries, breath hitching wildly, "Ever since we screwed you been lookin' to get one up on me, _well here it is!"_ He slings the empty bottle in her direction and it sails straight through her and shatters against the crusted brickwork. "Is it pretty?! Enjoy it, _fucking choke on it,_ now rot in hell and leave me to hell alone."

In the lousy silence which follows Ana seems to be trying to formulate an answer, trying to process this vile poison which is emanating from him. After a long silence, she says quietly, "That's what you think of me, huh Tex?"

"Don't push me," He breathes in a dangerously low voice, _"Ana I swear to God –"_

"I didn't want this for you, you arrogant _bastard."_ Her eyes flash darkest obsidian and stop him in his tracks. She is fading away before him now, and he knows it isn't the alcohol. She has done her bit, she is passing on, but she still hisses, "I didn't wanna bring this shit down on you and see you this way. I hate myself for it. _But I_ _had to do it._ It's all part of the plan."

He meets her eyes through furious tears as his blood chills. _"Plan…"_

"You still don't get it…?! Dharma _engineered_ this. They knew you'd ask me to find your girlfriend. I'm a fucking puppet Sawyer, and I hate it, _but that's the way it is."_ She is waning, her outline diminishing away through the snow, but she is determined to finish as she leans forth, "Whatever she told you that's got you this bad, don't let it beat you like this. You can't let it, _do you understand me?_ Because that's exactly what they _want_ – they wanna get you in the head, screw you up –"

"Ana, I can't take it," He breathes to her final image, _"Ana, I'm losing my mind…"_

But she is gone, and he is alone with only his pain and broken glass left up here with him on the snowy fire escape.

* * *

When he staggers into his motel room an unknown amount of time later, Kate turns from pacing at the window, arms clenched tightly against her chest, lips pressed into a hard line. Upon seeing the state of him, her anxiety rapidly falls to revulsion. 

"You're blind drunk," She shakes her head, voice rising against her wishes, "What the hell are you thinking? _What are you thinking?!"_

He drops his pack to the bed, collapsing by it and shakily pulling out the food for her. Trying to stay calm, stay sane, he extends his hands, full of sachets of milk and leftover bread rolls, and she sees the tears streaming down his cheeks.

"What happened…" She drops besides him on the bed, but he is shaking his head, refusing to speak. She grips his face hard and makes him meet her eyes, staring into him searchingly, "What's going on, talk to me, _what happened to you –"_

"Babies dead Kate," He hitches, and she feels her world spinning rapidly out of focus. Instinctively she clutches her belly in defiance,

"_What –?!"_

"Cassidy… she… she…" He trembles wildly, and she rubs his shoulders, trying to instil some heat into him. Pulling the leftovers from his hands, which he is clutching like some kind of life preserver she pulls back in shock.

There is blood on his palms, and her wide eyes fly to his face in shocked question. "You're bleeding – _what have you done?"_

He only sinks backwards onto the creaking bed, breathing shallowly. Standing quickly she grabs her backpack and pulls out her small medical kit. Kneeling by him on the bed, she studies his hand. He has his eyes closed, and doesn't even register any pain when she studies his gashed palm. He smells like he drank enough to knock out an elephant, so she's not highly surprised. Mind whirring, she fumbles through the box of medical supplies, finding the needle and thread. "Its deep. Gonna need stitches, might hurt a little…"

He mumbles something incoherent and winces a little as she begins to stitch up his hand. His fingers are like icicles, and she wonders in cold fear just how he will react to this come morning. After a few minutes, the pain in his hand seems to bring him back to his senses, and he tries to jerk it away.

"Easy," She breathes, "Just a few more."

"You… you should eat… somethin'…" He sighs.

As Kate applies a bandage to his hand, she nods. "I'm gonna pig out on bread rolls and ketchup."

"You're crazy…" He breathes.

"You didn't exactly bring the staples of a well rounded diet," She jokes softly, desperately trying to instil some semblance of good feeling into the conversation. "I'm gonna make some coffee. It's lousy but its hot. You should drink some." She presses a kiss to his forehead and moves to the cluttered kitchen counter by the bedside.

As they drink black coffee on their bed, Kate sees that Sawyer has receded somehow. The open lines of communication they had haltingly shared at breakfast are a distant memory. The shuttered look in her face tells her that hearing about Clementine has changed him in ways that scare her… but the lingering effects of the alcohol has pushed his pain deep beneath the surface now. The conversation slowly turns towards Cassidy and Clementine, and Kate finds herself asking the dreaded question, "How did you feel?"

"What?" An ambulance shrieks past their window as distant yelling and breaking glass filter through the cracked window pane.

"When she told you that you were a father. That you had a baby."

He doesn't answer her for a long while, and the wait is torture. She knows however he responds will decide the fate of their own child. She honestly believes now that she could never be a mother to a child, that she is too emotionally stunted and selfish… but he could change her mind. If they could do it together, maybe they would stand a chance…

He finally lets out a shaky breath between his teeth. "Still remember the cold sweat... nearly threw my guts up, right there in the visiting pen. Just kept thinking how much of a fuck up I would turn a child into. What a useless mess I'd make of it."

She draws back and stares at him long and hard, knowing that the worst she had feared of hearing is unravelling before her, as Sawyer tiredly looks down to her, "I could never be a father. Don't, _for one second_, ever believe that. Some folk just ain't parent material, Kate. You're looking at one of them."

"What about now?" She says in a small voice.

"Do you really think we've changed?" He slurs, shaking his head, "Look around! I mean, maybe, when we had the money, there was a chance. We didn't have to go back to the way we were, had money enough to get by honest, just like you wanted. But now? You know way it's gonna be."

Kate takes the coffee cup from his hands and places it on the chipped nightstand, turning off the lamp. And as she settles down besides Sawyer, the full connotations of his words playing over in her mind, she hears him slur, "And if Cassidy came back from beyond, or wherever the hell she is now and told me that story again, I'd tell her to get rid of it."

For moments, she is winded. Can barely breathe. Unconsciously her hand reaches for her stomach as she whispers evenly, _"Really…?"_

"_Really…" _Sawyer growls, and finally succumbs to sleep.

* * *

Kate eases the door of the motel room shut behind her, and steps out into the icy night, wrapping her coat about her. The night clothes she is wearing underneath are so thin, but it doesn't matter. Not where she's heading. 

She walks a block before hailing a cab. It's yellow bulk weaves through the melting slush in the street, and as she clambers into the back, she is shivering uncontrollably. "I need… _I need…"_

"Hey, take it easy lady…" The driver twists in his seat with resigned tolerance and hands her a scrunched up tissue. "Hey, here."

Kate nods fiercely, meets his eyes desperately, "Can you take me to the nearest clinic please? Or doctors surgery?"

The cabbies face momentarily clouds, perhaps grasping a little of what is happening here. He's grasping more than Kate, that's for sure. Kate is in lockdown. But this isn't fugitive lockdown. She isn't thinking about her safety or surviving. She just wants this over. She wants rid of this source of pain.

"There's a 24hr clinic just round the block." The cabbie says in a somewhat softer voice, "Hold tight."

"Wait --" Kate says suddenly as the car begins to move away. The cabbie slams on the breaks and shoots her an inquisitive look. "I don't have any money." She says in a small voice.

He looks to her wearily, then noticing her night clothes he sighs. "Its only a block. Least I can do."

* * *

Sitting on the fluoroscopy table, swinging her bare legs, Kate is numb. The thin basic issue nightgown feels almost papery thin against her cold skin, and the anaesthetic they had given her is taking effect. Unbelievably, the end to this madness was much simpler to come by than she would ever have thought possible. It made her sick to her stomach. All it took to terminate a life was a signature on a piece of paper, and a battery of questions. 

And as she sits now, waiting for the procedure to commence, she rests her hands over the small, yet defined bump on her midriff… and finally she speaks to the child in her.

"I am so… so… sorry. I want to keep you. I do. Because I think I could love you very much… but I'm weak. I can't bring you into this world, its not fair. Not with me, not with Sawyer, we can't be your Mommy and Daddy… I wish we could." Her mind begins to burn, as Dharma's voices threaten to overcome her, but she battles to speak, to have these last words with her unborn child, "Please don't hate me… I couldn't live with myself if I thought you would. _I'm so sorry…"_

And as she opens her eyes, she sees a shadow in the doorway. A tall, slender doctor. He is walking towards her, but his footsteps are drowned out by the rush of white noise blowing through her mind, eradicating all else. All pain, all fear… and and as the man steps into the lamp light, Kate is mindblown as gripping her stomach, she whispers in a hoarse breath,

"_Jack?!"_

* * *

**PLEASE REVIEW ME! **This was such a huge chapter, and I really hope you guys enjoyed it. It took a lot to write this. Please tell me what you think…! 


	40. Road to Ruin

**Chapter 40**

**The Road to Ruin**

Oh thou good Kent how shall I live and work to match thy goodness?

My life will be too short, and in every measure fail me.

- _King Lear, William Shakespeare_

The first time Sawyer found out something he wasn't supposed to know was when he had walked in one his mother and Mr Sawyer grappling with one another on Betty, the kitchen table. He has found out many things since. But as New Years day dawns grey and misty in Wisconsin thirty years later, and he wakes alone in a rundown, water damaged motel room, he finds out another.

Waking with a hangover which threatens to split his skull in two, he groggily sits, taking in the bleached bright room. Ten past 6 of the am, the little blinking alarm clock flashes merrily. And shit, this place looks ten times worse in daylight. The paper peels off the walls, a heady smell of damp hangs in the air, he swears to God that's a _slug_ trail across his arm…

… _and_ _he's_ _alone_.

"Kate…?" He calls, wincing as a pain throbs at his hand. He looks down to the bandage, unsure how in hell that got there. "Freckles, you in the bathroom?"

He stands, stretching and tests the bathroom door. It squeals inward, revealing the grotty bathroom. And still, no Kate. Frowning, he kneads his forehead, studying the room, as though if he squints hard enough the walls will tell him where in hell she's gotten to. The room is undisturbed – wherever the Elusive One went, she left in a hurry. Her backpack is still slung on the floor, her clothes still drying on the heater.

He paces awhile, tries to take his mind off her disappearance – maybe she went out to catch breakfast. Maybe she just needed some air. Maybe she would be back soon, fresh from the kill. Hell, he has no right to fret, not after what he probably put her through last night, disappearing for hours himself…

But his eyes keep returning to the heater, where Kate's green shirt is growing good n' crispy. He picks it up uncertainly, pulling the stiffness out of it – wherever she went, he realizes, she must still be in her nightclothes. And that's not a look he can imagine fugitive Kate wearing well.

And where in the hell _is_ she…?

* * *

The air in the 24hr clinic's waiting room has turned glacial cold, ramming the hairs on Kate's arms upright. The flimsy paper robe suddenly seems like nothing, and she shivers as he mind spins away, far out of her reach. Rationality deserts her. She cannot form coherent thoughts, logical speech. Emotion just devastates her as Jack moves into the thrumming cold room. "Jack… Jack, is it really you…?"

And as he steps into the neon light, the light travels over the painfully familiar contours of Jack Shepard's time worn face. The details rush up in sickening clarity – the lines which lace beneath his honeyed eyes, the scruff of beard, the sun bleached quality of his skin… as he ceases feet away from her, that tentative smile on his lips as he squints through the lights. "It's me."

He takes her hands, and she gasps. Its like gripping on ice, but he's _substantial_. His eyes trace from her face to their clasped hands, which rest over Kate's stomach almost as if in protection… "Congratulations…?" He offers with soft uncertainty, jaw clenching ever so slightly. "Whose the lucky guy?" Kate knows that anyone who didn't know Jack would have missed that tell-tale twitch, that sign which tells her he is fighting back emotion. She can barely look, waiting in tortured silence on his judgement, for his accusatory eyes to return to hers… she watches him closer than she has ever watched any face in her life. Begging inside, heart shredding itself to pieces… because she doesn't think she can bear his rejection, his judgement. Not now.

"Don't," Her breath hitches painfully, and God its so hard to hold herself together, "Please, _don't_…"

But when his eyes finally meet hers, there is no judgement – just honest concern, at a complete loss to understand. He struggles for the right words, "Kate… what are you _doing_ here…?!

"I'm not having this conversation with you." She tears her eyes away, trying to block him out, knowing what must be done, "Please, just _go_ –"

Jack laughs, that snatch-of-breath-laugh she had grown to know so well, shaking his head determinedly in that infuriating way he had, "I came all this way to find you, I'm not leaving you again –"

Fiercely Kate swipes at her eyes, furious at herself as she feels her control slipping away, away, "I don't want you to see me this way, not here, _not like this –"_

"Kate, please," He is staring into her, refusing to drop his gaze until she returns it, "Kate… _let me help you."_

"Oh Jack…" Suddenly the tears blind her, and her throat stings, locks off tight. Because if there is one thing she suddenly wishes for more than anything in the world, it is that Jack _could_ help her. "Jack, you _can't_. You never could. It's too late… I've made my decision."

He flinches, but her cold words don't seem to be having the effect she so desperately wants. He is undeterred, and as he pulls back, giving her space, she knows he is pondering how to take this from a different angle. Crazily, she wonders how many patients he has had to talk down from situations such as this, and if he is racking his brains to remember how to deal with this. Kate's mind begins to race under his gaze, her mind beginning to whir as those voices sigh, oh so softly,

_I never asked for this, Kate _

And she remembers Claire, back on the Oceanic Princess a whole lifetime ago as she sat with her in the rolling, guttering halls in the midst of a storm, the pretty Australians eyes blazing with fearful fire,

_I love my baby, I've never loved anyone more in my life, I swear to you. But I'm so scared… because what if that's not enough? Just loving someone doesn't mean you're what's right for them, does it?_

"You're here alone?" He asks, checking her charts and stats.

"MmmHmm." She realises she has been crossing her arms so tightly across her chest she has lost the feeling in her fingers. When she drops her hands, she sees red welts on her pale skin where her fingers had been digging in. She is coming _undone_ –

"How did you get so far..?" When Kate looks up, she finds Jack gazing at her with a wistful, distant expression, "You've run so far…"

She clears her throat, forces herself to steady her voice. "After we got off the Island, me and Sawyer… we started running, and we've never really stopped. Dharma won't let us." But under his gaze, she loses her strength. It was always this way – his gaze breaks her down in a dozen different places. "I'm so tired Jack. I'm so tired of all of this."

Jack approaches, his momentary disbelief clear as day on his face, "_Sawyer's_ the father…?"

_He won't stick around, _Claire's voice implores in her mind relentlessly, _Guys never do. And then I'll be left alone again, to bring up a baby I can't even go anywhere near right now…"_

"_He's not a father Jack,"_ Kate flashes hotly, eyes suddenly alight with pain, "He won't get the chance. And I'm _not_ a mother. Those words don't exist for us, okay?"

Jack looks to her for a long moment, and she does not back down. She stares back, determined that if there is one issue on which she should stand up and stand tall for, it's this. She has never believed anything more wholeheartedly in her life.

Jack seems thrown by the fire by which she speaks, and for a moment, there is just that electric silence… when a ghost of a smile tugs his lips. "No. No, I don't believe you. This isn't you, Kate. This isn't how you work.."

"You don't know the first thing about me Jack, you never did –"

"But I know how you _come_ at things. I know you run. Just like you're running away right now, from this responsibility. Well this is a _life_ Kate. A real, living breathing baby that _you've_ created." His eyes sparkle with desperation, but also with an infuriating sense of knowing, "You kill it, you kill part of _yourself_ with it. I know you… and I know you couldn't do that."

At those words, something inside Kate snaps. Actually, even in those fleeting moments before she explodes, she realizes it isn't what he said – it's the look about him as he said it. That maddening look of patience, of understanding which she had longed to see had given way to what truly lay beneath in Jack's heart – a terrible sense of righteous morality which she had always craved, and yet abhorred.

"Don't you dare preach at me…" The deathly cold in her voice gives way to brittle words that crash headlong through the bitter air like ice, "You wait all these months, then you fly up here and you pick _tonight_ to give me one of your pep talks?! _Well screw you Jack!_ All these times I _needed_ you, all these months that I've needed to talk to you, needed you here so badly _and you never came_…" She splays her arms with incredulous blazing fire, _"A living breathing life?!_ Don't you think I _know_ that? It's living inside _me_, I _know_ that!"

As her words tremble away on the air into a malicious silence, Jack is just staring at her, his hurt plain to see. But she still sees that fundamentally, he will never understand the horrific complexity of her decision. He is trying to help her the only way he knows how, but for the first time, Kate wonders with dawning alarm if the salvation she had hoped to find in Jack would actually liberate her anymore. She had carried the burden of trying to live up to Jack's moral expectations ever since she had met him in that humid jungle glade, bleeding out on the sand. She had sought his approval with an all consuming desire to prove herself good, worthy, morally sound… but as she looks up into his swirling brown eyes now, she wonders if the deliverance she had expected his approval to bestow upon her wasn't all a hopeless joke. Because he doesn't understand the situation, and what's worse, is that he simply bulldozed in with his ethical objections. Decent, honourable objections – but objections which she could simply never hear.

"But it's not just your child, Kate. Is that why you're finding this so hard?" He meets her eyes slowly, as though trying desperately hard to recognise this hardened woman before him, "It is, isn't it…? Because you haven't told him what you're doing, have you…?"

She sucks a breath between her clenched teeth, hating that she is having to justify herself to Jack when she can barely verbalize her fears to herself, "I know how he feels."

"Are you sure?"

"He was drunk." The recollection itself sends a shiver through her, "Last night, out of his mind…"

Jack's astonishment knows no bounds, "And _that's_ what your basing this decision on?!"

"You don't know how we work Jack." She meets his eyes, throat locking. But she refuses to retreat into silence, let the emotion overcome her. She has never let emotion cloud her judgement, she is stronger than that… "There's barriers upon barriers upon _barriers_… sometimes I can peel them back from him, see him. And just sometimes, he can do the same to me. He's the only person I've ever known who could _do_ that to me… But last night, for one of the first times, _there were no barriers Jack._ When he looked at me, when he told me he'd get rid of a life… that was _real_." And everything is beginning to spin, beginning to lose clarity and the lights dazzle her, flare around her, and she realizes she is crying cold, hard tears, "I _know_ him… and I know he meant it."

Suddenly the sterile side door squeaks open and a tired looking nurse steps inside, and gestures Kate forth with a reassuring half-smile. "Would you like to come through?"

Kate meets Jack's gaze sadly… as he gives it one last try. "Kate, I gotta ask you… do you really want to do this?"

Never wanting anything less in her life, Kate turns to the nurse. "Take me through. I'm ready."

* * *

Sawyer is watching a re-run of ER as the sun fights a losing battle to break the grey clouds over Wisconsin – but in truth, he could never have said what in hell was blaring from the battered set in the corner of the motel room. Didn't give a flying fuck, for that matter. It had been effectively jamming out the worst of his thoughts (and the voices) for a good couple of hours now, with its reassuring light, images, and noisy car chases – it was something to focus on, cling blindly to, as he attempted to shut his mind down from the barrage of god-awful premonitions of Kate's fate. What if she'd been caught? God knows the damn fugitive had a bounty of ways to keep herself hidden, but what if she'd been taken by surprise? It happened… and it was somehow less terrifying to imagine she'd been captured, taken unwillingly from him than the other possibility, the other malevolent, black possibility which gnaws away at the back of his mind…

And to his growing hysteria, he is finding the TV set is no longer distraction enough, however hard he tries, to keep him calm. His thoughts return, as if magnetised, to the last words they'd spoken, looking for answers, _anything_,

_Just kept thinking … a fuck up I would turn a child into... useless mess I'd make of it…_

The words are a haze, he can't even be sure if that's what he'd said… but damn, the sentiment still stands. Why she'd even thought to push him on that god-awful subject baffled him no end, but that black feeling is pushing forwards with every passing hour. Every passing _minute_, in fact, in which the door remains shut, in which the rain drizzles, in which he sits alone, surrounded by her sparse belongings, the blackness rises, growing into an all encompassing question which he is dread to confront, merely cranks the volume on the TV set until the neighbours batter his door. He turns it down, fearing the bastards might call the cops, and in the devastating quiet which follows as he sinks into the overstuffed couch, the question rises and there is no running from it.

_Has she left him?_

Sawyer sighs furiously, and grapples Kate's backpack, digging through it to find answers, a clue. Would she have run off in her PJ's leaving behind her last possessions if she was hell bent on leaving him? Was she out of her mind? Maybe something in her journal – maybe his drunken antics last night had freaked her out in some way he was missing, maybe –

Emptying the contents over the damp speckled bedspread, he rifles through it and a lone bread roll cartwheels to the floor. Remains of the food he'd given her last night. Well if she wasn't gonna eat it, he damn well would. He breaks it open, and crunching on it, he thoughtfully stares at the contents of her bag… then freezes.

His fingers work through Kates meagre possessions, past her gun, ammo, the little toy plane, past the battered journal… and grasp a small plastic rod. He's never seen one of these things outside of those god-awful commercials on TV. A pregnancy test.

_A positive one._

Suddenly, the world seems very far away. The object in his hands seems foreign and treacherous, as the troubles it presents rushes at him with the force of a Mac truck, winding him. He is freefalling from a great height with no hope of stopping. Because this doesn't make a blind bit of _sense_… if this is true, if Kate is _pregnant_, why would she keep it from him?

And with terrible clarity his final words to her ring in his ears, as the voices burn and scatter through his mind with glee,

_If Cassidy came back from beyond and told me that story again… I'd tell her to get rid of it._

* * *

Misty grey, everywhere. That's all the world is made up of now, a faded world of rain slicked sidewalks, whispering cars surfing through the drenched streets, fragile figures darting from stores. Fragile lives interacting only on the extreme outskirts of one another's existence. As Kate steps outside of the clinic, wrapping Jack's coat around her tightly, she know nothing can ever be the same. She is empty, like some great force has carved out an essential part of her soul, and left her barren, broken. She had never expected this. She had never thought she would feel this way, not now, never, never, never… not when the decision had finally been made, irreversible.

The people who pass her on the country street barely register her presence, they're too busy trying to get out of the rain. Kate can barely feel it, and it certainly doesn't touch Jack, who is walking alongside her, soaked but stubbornly sticking to his vow of not leaving her. How he must hate her, she thinks, how he must loathe her. They don't speak at all, as they walk the block back to the motel, and Kate wonders distantly if this is a pointed gesture on his behalf, whether he will haunt her as a mute from now on, as a mark of his disapproval. Just those piercing dark eyes, that can say everything whilst saying nothing. His gaze brands her whenever she catches it, so she has taken to not looking anymore. When they stand outside the rundown motel, Jack looks up and appraises the building, then meets her gaze.

"Tell me I did the right thing." She says in a faraway voice. He sees her eyes are dusty and guttering, lifeless. He looks to her a long moment, as though weighing up everything she had said to him previously. And then with a sad smile, he tenderly wipes the rain streaked hair from her forehead.

"What are you gonna tell him?"

She doesn't feel the sting of his words, because Kate is distant. Kate is retreating far, far away. She is rediscovering the beauty of her blue room, where she is safe, untainted, _whole_.

"The truth." She says in a voice which is no longer her own. And when Jack presses a something into her numb hands, she doesn't recognize what it is.

"It's all I had when I died," Jack says in a careful voice, "I want you to have it."

A thin wad of money… in her state, Kate doesn't think to ask how he came to have it. "Why?" She asks dazedly.

He seems to be struggling with something. Like her earlier words affected him in ways she couldn't imagine…"So you can run."

* * *

The light is falling from the world as the clock strikes three. Three o'clock in the damn afternoon and the sun is giving up, throwing in the towel, Sawyer thinks bitterly. Even the goddamn _sun_ knows when to call it a day –

When the oh-so-soft scrape of a key in a lock whispers through the room, and his hands compulsively grip the window ledge. He turns slowly, gathering every last semblance of his strength to hold onto his self-control, be calm… as Kate steps inside, drenched to the bone in a jacket he doesn't even recognise. Their eyes meet for a brief moment, and in those seconds he wonders crazily if this really _is_ Kate at all… she has a crazily abstracted look about her he has never seen before, white, white as death, and her puffy eyes are hollow, empty –

"Hey." The word is a breath, he doesn't recognize her voice…

"Hey yourself." He feels like he is tottering close to the edge of so many perilous pitfalls right now, her disappearance, his own foul temper, her fucking _dead_ _eyes_ –

She drops her gaze, and as he watches her close the door, she crosses to the dresser and strips off the sodden jacket. Just as he'd thought – she's wearing her P'Js.

"Nice outfit." He bites, helpless to stop himself.

"Neighbourhood we're in, I don't think anybody even noticed." Kate flashes a ghost of a smile at him, "How's your hand?"

"Still works." He grits, and fixes her with an unflinching stare as he throws back, "How's thebaby?"

And she freezes.

He watches every muscle in her back tension beneath her flimsy vest top, and as she turns to face him, a deathly cold set has overtaken her face. He picks up the pregnancy test, and holds it up, breath hitching, struggling to hold onto himself, hold onto _calm_,

"Now… I _know…_ this ain't _mine_…"

She moves towards him as though walking through thick concrete. He looks down to her as she gently pulls it from his hands. He only watches, assessing every inch of her, so torn between wanting to grab her close and wanting to strangle her, _"Where did you go?"_

"For a walk."

The temper, the heat is rising, spinning out of his control no matter how he tries to force it down, "I wake up this morning and you're gone, I'm thinking you could be dead, I'm thinking you could be lying in a _goddamn gutter someplace_, and all the while you were out _sightseeing?!"_

"Sawyer –"

But there is no stopping now. Now he has started, all the shit which has been broiling around his head all day just explodes, "You made me feel like I'd – I'd betrayed you. By not telling you about Clem… and all the while _you're –"_

"Sawyer _please –"_

"Why didn't you _tell_ me?!" His mouth is flying away from him, he isn't thinking as the words tumble out, "Kate, this is like a second chance, don't y'see? A chance to prove them all wrong, a chance to _change –"_

Kate wrings her hands, "Sawyer _stop_ –"

"What I said last night, well maybe I was _wrong_, maybe I can change, if you're in this with me _maybe I can be a father –"_

"You can't –" She implores, "You told me yourself, _you CAN'T –"_

"I wanna try, _I gotta TRY –"_

"You can't…" Her head is shaking from side to side violently, mouth working around such a soundless grief he can't stand as she breathes, _"Sawyer… you can't."_

"Where did you go…" This first, a whisper, the next, a jagged demand as he grips her, _"Where did you go?!"_

As he shakes her roughly her head snaps back and forth, and she gasps, _"Where do you think?!"_

Something about the shuttered grief in her eyes drives the wind from his lungs and for a moment, he stops. Just stops, and these next moments seem to stretch into eternity. If he lives to be a hundred, Sawyer knows he will never forget the way he drowned, in those moments. Just drowns in the sea of emptiness in those green eyes. In that instance, he hates them. They represent everything foul and vile and foreign to him in the world right now, and he swears until the rush of blood to his head blinds him with its force, he swears to God on fucking high that he hates her. Every scrap of her, with every tendon and fibre and drop of blood in his veins he hates her, every strand of hair and freckle on her upturned nose… and he hates her with the purest, deepest kind of loathing that you can only ever feel for the precious few that you love.

"You didn't…" His words, a mere rush of air, "Not that…" But she only returns his stare hopelessly, arms crossed before her, and he knows. No words necessary, here.

He sits down… and as he does so, a strange cloudy haze settles over him. Over the world. The world bleaches, the colour seems to fall away as a high whine drones through the air. Blood roars in his ears, and nothing seems to sink in. Nothing reaches him. There's just this isolated state of complete disconnection, he's never felt anything like it. Is this what it feels like to go into shock? He feels like ice, an iceberg, and with every moment which fades away he drifts further and further out to sea. But that isn't right. An iceberg feels no pain. An iceberg doesn't feel cold. He is cold, and this pain is burrowing down like nothing he's ever known.

She is staring at him, scared out of her mind. He has never seen this look about her before. It's like every emotion he has ever seen on the mirror surface of Kate's face up until this point has been mere shadows of this fear. This is _primal_. This is primal, gut-wrenching, and he can't stand it… because she looks like she lost her _mind_ out on the streets, last night.

"You did the smart thing." The words are falling from him, he doesn't understand them, or recognize the coldness in his voice. He is ice. "You got me down pat… I ain't fit to be nobodies father. I ain't never had no schooling, I'm on the run, our relationship's shot to pieces, my own father weren't exactly no role model… now I'm violent, suicidal, and… my sole goal in life… is to murder the man who destroyed my life."

Kate is watching him so closely, like she wants to climb inside him and understand him, make this okay. But before his voice fails him, before his brittle resolve perishes, he _has_ to finish. "This ain't no life any decent parent'd wanna bring a child into. All that stuff with Clem must a fried my brain, I… _of course you're right_." But he drops his gaze from her on this last, praying she wont see this pain, _"Of course we can't be parents."_

The silence of the motel room stretches away, as Kate slowly crosses the room back to him, distant and wiping her red eyes, "You still… you still want to kill that guy…?" Off his look she sinks to the bed, and to his surprise, she takes his hand. She is freezing, but on her touch his barriers shudder, begin to self destruct.

"You think what I did was _smart_…?"

"Sure." He grits, untrusting himself to elaborate as his throat locks, _"Smart."_

"What about right…?" She is staring into him, the first sign of emotion creeping into her face… desperation. "You think what I did was right?"

"Kate…ah, Kate…" The emotion chokes him, won't afford him air. He succumbs to it, wraps a heavy arm around her frozen shoulders drawing her close, "Baby, when have we ever cared about what's right?"

"I care right now." She breathes into his shoulder, holding him tight, like she had expected his rejection and is overcome by his acceptance.

He smiles as they part, but it is the saddest smile Kate has ever seen. A mockery of a smile, and Kate hates that she has brought him to this, "Honest to God…? Freckles, I don't know. _I don't…"_

He stands and moves to start packing his things. He is numb, can't get his head together. It's too much to take in, how is he supposed to react? He doesn't know, he doesn't know anything anymore. He only tugs Kate's green vest from the heater, offers it to her. But she is watching him with a wide open look of guilt that blindsides him. For all the emotion that she had lacked since she had returned, the sheer strength of this regret knocks him for six.

"I don't want to be a murderer anymore..." She chokes fiercely, and stands. _"I didn't do it._ I couldn't…I'm sorry…"

As she approaches him, Sawyer hears a high ringing, and the room is spinning. That all too familiar sickness that had threatened him in the visiting pen all those years ago reoccurs, and he is mind blown as she stands before him and finishes, "So you want to try? You want a second chance to try and be a father…? I think you might have just gotten your wish."

He drags her close, hopelessly confused and yet all at once, those burning words he spoke to her in the heat of the moment give him strength… he can _try_. He can try to be the father he never had.

* * *

"Are you coming?" Kate stands at the door looking annoyed, but he can see she her heart isn't in it. Ever since she told him about the incoming trouble to their lives, she had seemed to come back from that lunatic state of mind. They had not broached the subject again, and Sawyer can see a shadow is hanging over her now. She seems withdrawn and quiet, and he's suddenly unsure how in hell they are going to carry on from here.

"My favourite commercial's on TV." He sighs sardonically, and she points the remote with a roll of her eyes and the set winks out. He grabs his pack, and leaving the shadows of the motel room behind, the hit the long road once more.

They had wound up in a nearby bar to stew, where Kate had miraculously produced a wad of twenty dollar bills to his amusement. She refused to be drawn on where she got two hundred bucks from, and he was too tired to press her on it – instead, they sat in uneasy silence in the midst of the sleepy bar. Kate stares into her vodka and Sawyer puts up the pretence of watching a ball game on the fuzzy piece of shit of a TV which dangles above the bar. Red Sox are getting their asses whupped, so what's new, he muses. One of the teams strikes out and a bellow of outrage ripples through the bar as he gets refills. JD for him, vodka for the lady. He was going to suggest Kate go a little easy on the old devil juice, maybe sup an OJ, but on her challenging look, he had caved. They still had five months for her to change her ways, by all accounts.

As they sit in the dark corner booth, he finds his mind drifting. Astounded that it has been five months since they first went together, physically, stunned that their surroundings have changed so inexplicably since then, trying to deny that he's a mite concerned about Kate knocking back vodka like its water and breathing in cigarette fogged air… and refusing to even think about what his rushed acceptance of Kate's condition might mean for him. A _father_…

The words have left his mouth before he's even aware of thinking them. "So what made you stop?"

She meets his gaze distantly. "What are you…"

"Time for truth talking, 'caus I'm a little foggy here…" He leans into her, trying to find the words, "I made my feelings pretty crystal last night, made you wanna go under that knife… so you get up in the middle of the night, dead set, you're outta your mind enough to leave in your PJ's, without money, a gun or any protection and then you just… change your mind?"

"Yes." She has grown distant again under his studious gaze.

"Just like that?"

"Something like that."

"Nuh-uh." He sighs, "Freckles, I'm tellin' you – I don't buy it."

She is staring into the bottom of her glass, as though wishing to drown in it. Barely audibly, she mumbles, "… Jack came."

After the day Sawyer has had, he can barely muster the energy to raise his eyebrows. The guy always did have a God Complex, so Sawyer is betting the saintly Doc is getting a kick out of the golden glow of a halo. But he can't deny the hurt. Because he knows _nothing he could have said_ would have made Kate change her mind. Even if she'd told him the truth, he would have said the same thing. Get rid of it. Because until he thought he'd lost the chance of redemption that the baby could bring, he didn't realize that in a selfish, blind way, he wanted this. Against all the odds, against his fears, his doubts, his very own _nature_, he wanted to try.

Now, he shakes his head, masking the timeworn hurt. "What, he blow some pixie dust in your eyes, work his voodoo magic?"

"No." Kate takes this on the chin, and meets his eyes. "He _did_ say… you kill it, you kill part of _yourself_ with it."

A long moment, and then for the first time, Sawyer lets the whole sore issue of Jackass slide. He's not here right now. Damnit, he's transparent."He also said once I wasn't devilishly good looking. Now I don't know what to believe." This elicits a smile for his troubles, "Man's full of hot air… but, maybe he was onto something there, for once."

She takes this in with almost a heartbreaking sense of gratitude for his unexpected understanding, and after a moment ventures, "I know we're not good people Sawyer. And I still don't know about all this… but I mean, if we keep it – and that's a big _if_, then… I dunno, maybe everything that's happened to us will make us _better_ parents, y'know?"

"_Yeah_._" _Sawyer scoffs, draining the last of his JD, "And God might use us for miracle practice yet."

"I'm serious…!" She looks to him earnestly, suddenly lighting up a little, "I mean, I didn't get a hell of a lot in the way of advice from my folks, but I got a whole _manual_ of how _not_ to raise a kid."

He recognises the floundering hope in her, and even though he doesn't believe it for a minute, he decides to try and lighten this damn atmosphere a little. "Advice? You're talking to the right person, baby I'm a sweet _rose_ garden of advice –"

"Oh really –?" Her eyes sparkle with restrained mirth.

"Really –!" He gestures her close, as if to whisper a secret in her ear. As she leans in, he grins, "Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty and the damn pig likes it." She pulls back, beaming at him like he's gone mad, and it's working, Kate is coming back, he can literally see her _transforming_ before her eyes, "Never get into a spitting contest with a llama, and never, EVER turn your back on a charging turtle. Never throw toilet paper at a bear –"

"Just where in hell did you grow up, the zoo?!"

"The zoo of life, sweetheart!" His eyes sparkle as they reach safe ground finally, "_Your_ turn."

She studies him a moment, perhaps realizing what he is doing… then shaking her head she smiles tentatively, "Tom used to say this – let me get this right… wisdom comes with age. Death comes with age. Therefore, wisdom is dangerous!"

Sawyer grins, getting into his stride. "Life hands you lemons, say to hell with that! I LIKE LEMONS, what else you got?"

Kate actually laughs out loud and raises her glass, "Booze might not be the answer, but it helps you forget the question."

"You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on!" Sawyer retorts, and Kate actually cocks her head, recognizing the unspoken challenge. Leaning forwards, she rifles through her limited artillery of worldly advice…

"Love many, trust a few, and always paddle your own canoe." She nods.

"Love?!" Sawyer scoffs, jumping in on the theme, "Honey, love is a merry little elf who dances a jig then turns on ya with _a machine gun."_

She laughs until red flowers bloom in her cheeks, and she clinks glasses with him even though his is empty. Draining the last of her vodka, she meets his gaze, smile fading as her advice turns sour. "Never break anyone's heart."

He watches her a moment, then returns, "Never rob nobody blind."

This is like old times, getting to know one another again. And in a sense, since they exited that dark, inconspicuous motel room, that's exactly what they had to do – because they had to be different people now. What with the arrival of this new life in mere months, there was no question.

"Never kill anybody." Kate murmurs finally, and Sawyer smiles sadly. Clinks empty glasses and breathes,

"Touche."

* * *

"And why are you clearing this account Sir?" The infuriating bank teller chirps, braces glinting on his teeth. Sawyer kneads his painful head. Kate is gonna be having a cardiac in the bar across the street, the amount of time he's taking.

"Because that's my damn _right_, you gotta problem with that Bucky?"

"My names David." The teller grates, misunderstanding.

"Whatever, now gimmie my money. Bills, twenties, nothing bigger smartass." Sawyer hurries the teller along with a gesture. As the teller rolls his eyes and counts the notes merrily, Sawyer glances for the hundredth time at the clock.

"The name of the holding account is a Miss Clementine Mathers, do you want me to close it?"

"_Close it,"_ Sawyer grits, gripping the cloth holdall resolutely, that name stinging harder than usual with this finality, "She won't be needing it."

* * *

When Kate exits the bar to get some fresh air, head spinning a little from the booze, she feels a little better – maybe it's the alcohol, maybe not. But she feels lighter somehow, as though a great weight has shifted subtly from her shoulders. She knows they have not confronted the truth of this baby yet, but they were finally united in their desire to bring it into this world… and for now, that is enough.

As she turns outwards, she sees a familiar figure sitting on a bench across the street. Pulling his jacket from her backpack, she watches as he crosses the quiet street, over the neon light streaked road, and stands before her.

"Thanks for the loaner." She smiles softly, handing Jack back his coat. He smiles, nodding.

"You okay?" He says with a protectiveness which makes her grin.

"I think so."

Jack looks across the street to the bank where Sawyer is clearly noticeable through the window gesturing at the teller irritably. "Is _he_ okay?"

"I don't know," She watches Sawyer from a distance, huddles into her coat, "I guess we'll find out, huh?" Kate pulls the remainder of Jack's money from her pocket, and to his notable surprise, presses it into his palm. "If he knew where this came from, he'd be furious." She sighs sadly, "And I don't wanna set him off. He'll have a hard enough time meeting you again, Jack…"

"Are you sure? It's not like I can use it –"

"Thanks anyway, but I'm sure."

Jack nods, shrugging and pocketing the money – then looks past her, smile fading. Kate turns to see Sawyer stepping out of the brightly lit bank, hefting the cloth holdall over his shoulder… and coasting to a slow halt. The tension is surprising, considering the main reason for it isn't even human.

But Kate immediately sees Sawyer palming the cigarette he was smoking, and before Sawyer can launch into Jack she demands, "Are you smoking again? What have I told you about that?!"

"Those things'll kill you y'know," Jack smiles wryly, "I should know."

"Son of a _bitch_," Sawyer stubs out the cigarette inconsolably, "You just couldn't stay dead could you?"

"You seen this? Check it out!" Kate says enthusiastically to Sawyer, and pinches Jack's arm. He yelps indignantly, and Sawyer is incredulous.

"What, that he's a pansy assed _baby?_ Already knew it!"

"No," Kate enthuses, "He's firm, Sawyer! He's not like Shannon or Ana-Lucia – he's not like them!"

"Whatever," Sawyer sighs wearily, "Still don't make him real."

"Thanks for the reminder," Jack chimes drolly.

"Come on," Sawyer trudges onwards, "We gotta make it to the greyhound station for sun up if you wanna get a ride." Kate hops behind, animated with Jack, and as Sawyer finds himself walking way ahead of them. When he turns to see Kate laughing hard with Jack, he splays a defensive hand. "Oh no Zombie Jack, you ain't invited. Why don't you magic yourself off to the land of Nod huh?"

Kate and Jack reach Sawyer unimpressed, as Jack elaborates slowly, "It doesn't work that way. When I first died, I… I was in another place – limbo maybe, I don't know. But I saw Boone there, asked him if he knew how I could get back to this world. He told me there was a way to get back here… but if I left Limbo, I couldn't get back. So I'm stuck here, until you guys release me…"

Throughout Jack's impassioned speech, Sawyer has just stared at him with a growing sense of annoyance. This is _just_ what he needs – even in death, the damn doctor wont give him peace. But Kate is eating this bull up with a spoon, he watches her wide eyes taking in Jack intently.

"So you have unfinished business…?" She takes his hand, "What is it?"

"I don't know," Jack sighs – but Sawyer swears he sees the Doc go uneasy, like he's confused… or _hiding_ something. "I don't know. But I guess I'll find out, huh?" He looks to Kate meaningfully, and Sawyer wishes suddenly he were human so he could take a swing at him. This journey just got a hell of a lot more complicated…

* * *

Sawyer had never laughed so hard in his life as when the three of them clambered onto a damp smelling greyhound at the crack of dawn the next day. The traffic coming out of Sturgeon Bay, which they had trekked to, consisted mainly of college kids commuting out of state, and a massive group of New Age hippies who started singing Kumbaya before the bus had even left the forecourt. But as much as Sawyer declared he would despise this journey, he just couldn't keep the giggles at bay. At one point, he was laughing so hard it was only wheezes, the tears pouring, stomach muscles begging for a release.

"It's not funny," Kate hisses for the hundredth time, whilst literally trembling with the strain of keeping a straight face.

"Goddamn it I wish I had a camera. Y'think ghosts show up on film?"

"NO." Kate grits, losing her resolve.

"What about the three year old on his knees?"

Kate shoots a look across the aisle to where Jack sits, fuming as a three year old boy delights in spreading its chocolate covered hands all over Jack's chinos. God, Sawyer had never been so happy that no'one else could see Jack.

"Stop it." Kate pleads, dangerously close to succumbing. Jack looks over desperately and Sawyer is lost to the giggles again. Best damn bus journey of his life.

Once they hit Minnesota, the bus disgorges them onto a muggy bus forecourt nine hours later in the heart of Minneapolis. Sawyer watches the hippies pile into a bright purple camper with bright yellow flowers sprayed onto it with a funny kinda sadness. Their singing had become like nails being driven into his eardrums, but hell, at least they were all about peace. They were happy in their dope smoking bubble of harmony…

Kate tugs at his sleeve, all bedheaded and only just woken up. How she slept through the caterwauling hippies he'll never know, but he admires her tenacity. "You got the maps?" She yawns.

He digs them out as Jack finally makes it off of the bus, in a chocolate stained mess. Sawyer has to fight off a fit, "Maybe we should ask the Milkybar Kid here –"

"Give it a rest," Jack grates.

"What's it taste like? Twinkie?" Sawyer gestures to the chocolate on Jack's face, "Run that by me cowboy, 'caus I don't think that's ever getting' old."

* * *

Sawyer finds a Dodge pick-up for five hundred dollars and they set off on the final leg of their journey in this country - across Minnesota towards the border of Manitoba… _Canada_. But as the weather grows steadily nicer, Kate and Jack sit out on the flatbed, watching the scenery. They are planning something, and as Sawyer drives, he is irritated. He never signed up to be cash cow to their schemes.

Kate had found a whole box of junk in the back of the dodge's rear compartment, and was busy sifting through it with Jack, heads bowed, thick as thieves. She always had an unashamed curiosity of other peoples cast offs. Jack talks to her of life in limbo, and his journey to reach her, and she tells him of their journey away from the island, of the Oceanic Princess, their journey to Sawyer's old home, how he had been so sick… the conversation falls away in the gently rushing wind, on the topic of the baby.

Jack doesn't press her, and she is grateful. Suddenly, she is staring at the junk with a new found interest as she cocks her head, "I know what I want to do."

He raises an eyebrow quizzically as she lifts the cardboard box and empties it's contents, which roll about the flatbed. "What?" He asks hesitantly.

"You ever made a time capsule?" Her eyes seem to come alive, and Jack suddenly realises Kate is before him again – lately, it seems she fades in and out like a faulty radio signal. "It's easy. I'm going to put reminders of me and Sawyer into it, in case anything happens, and the baby…" She stops, looking out over the rushing golden corn which spins away from the dodge… "If it's taken from us… or something should happen. It might. I know that." She suddenly seems to clamp back onto reality and shakes her head determinedly, "But if it makes it, grows up, if I could figure out a way to let it know where to look, then maybe one day it could find it… and remember us." She meets Jacks gaze as the wind whups her hair about her face. She pushes the strands away, crimsoning. "You think I'm crazy."

But Jack only breaks into a sunny smile and grins, "No. I think that's a beautiful idea."

* * *

When Sawyer draws up into a _Mugs-N-Buns_ Diner at five that afternoon, he hops down from the cab to find Kate poring over a crazy looking contraption with almost religious like fervour. Jack is already out and looking around the diner with interest as Sawyer squints at the box.

Kate awaits his reaction eagerly, cheeks flushed as she spins it to him and grins with a Cheshire cat beam _'Taaa- daaaaaaaaa!"_

Her prized masterpiece is in fact a cardboard box covered in tin foil, which she has stapled brown glitzy pieces of fabric from one of her old shirts to the sides of. Somehow, she realizes it doesn't look so hot as she had imagined – well, she flunked art in grade school.

"It's a time capsule." She validates, "For the… _y'know_."

Sawyer cocks his head, feeling he is being made fun of or being left out of some kind of joke. Casting a sceptical eye over her masterpiece like a fine art critic, he then ventures an opinion around a mouthful of apple. "Looks like dead animals stapled to a cardboard box."

"I put in Tom's plane," She pats the box, expression clouding a moment, "And my journal. I think you should put something in too."

But Sawyer is fascinated with her handiwork. "Christ, a platypus could've done a better job. And they don't even have _thumbs."_ Realizing he had spoken aloud, he grips Kates hand and helps her off the flatbed, "Whatever you say Mamasita."

* * *

They ate at the _Mugs-N-Buns, _then headed out towards the border town of Ely as night began to fall. The final drive through the Northern Minnesota badlands seemed to pass in an almost dreamlike haze for Kate, as she sits in the flatbed, watching the flatlands and great lakes glitter past in flashes of silver, aqua and yellow. As they grow ever closer to the border, her anxiety levels rise to near unbearable proportions, as she expects them to face another roadblock, a trap, cops, Dharma hunters, _anything_…

… but she _isn't_ expecting it to go this smoothly. They have not faced any unwarranted attention, any problems since they started up Highway 53 two hours ago. Instinctually, their ease of passage sets alarm bells ringing in her head that she can't shift. And yet amazingly, she finds the rocking of the truck lulling her to sleep…

Sawyer checks on Kate in the rear view, trying to drown out Jack's continual monologue about how he journey through the forests and plains of Limbo to return to help them. Mind numbingly dull – he didn't know how he was going to endure travelling another hour with this guy, let alone days. And Kate wasn't much better – now Kate had come clean about her paternal state, she seemed to think that gave her free reign to indulge her ridiculous cravings. The bonus of eating out with Jack in tow was that he got in free at _Denny's_, with as many trips to the buffet as he wanted, so at least Sawyer didn't have to spend a dime on him. But he _did_ have to endure the ritual humiliation of Kate topping her salad with onion, whipped cream and choco-sprinkles – he drew the line when she reached to cap it all of with some Cap'n Crunch Cereal thrown on for good measure.

And that wasn't the worst of it. In the daytime she ate cheese until she stank out the cab of the truck, and Sawyer swore blind if she didn't quit sneaking onions on board he'd have her ride up back. He even had the brainwave that maybe if she took Jack with her, if he drove fast enough the saintly doc might just blow away on a stray gust of fortuitous wind. The irony of Jack being blown away by hot air didn't escape Sawyer. Right now, he turns the radio up loud and sings along to _'More than a feeling' _and denies that it's definitely _more_ than a feeling of sickness he is feeling about crossing the border. He's sweating like a damn trooper, and his mind is throbbing heavily. And for the first time, he can hear the voices in his head seem _angry. FURIOUS, _even

_where are you where are you WHERE ARE YOU –_

He shakes his head, forcing himself to focus on the road signs. There hasn't been one for ten miles now, and he suddenly wonders if he took a wrong turn someplace, if those damn voices were _deliberately_ trying to distract him.

"Sawyer, I don't think Ely's this way," Jack says for the thousandth time.

"How the hell do you know?" Sawyer retorts crabbily, "Look – there's a sign – it says ELY, 20 miles! _Jackass_…"

"Sawyer, that said _Caution, Moose Ahead!_ Can you even SEE?"

"_I know that,"_ Sawyer huffs in annoyance, "Just keeping you on your toes."

So by the time the pick-up draws along a byway of Highway 53 at eight that evening, Kate wakes up to find the pick-up stopped and Jack scuffing through the dirt angrily towards her. "We're lost. I can't believe it. He told me he knew where he was going!"

Kate yawns with a sinking feeling, "You didn't believe him?!"

"Well –" Jack looks about in frustration, "I'm not exactly capable of driving this thing myself!"

Shaking her head, Kate pushes the blankets and tarp away and hops down. "Great, look, I'll drive."

"You think he'll let you?" Jack scoffs angrily, "He kept threatening to wind his window down just to see if I'd evaporate if he _drove_ fast enough!"

"Listen," She rubs her eyes, ties her hair back briskly as though getting ready to go into battle, "There's two way's we get things done round here Jack. Either do it yourself, or tell Sawyer _not_ to do it. Make that three - suggest he's too old for it, and he'll come running." But Jack notes the affection on her face as Sawyer blusters up in annoyance. Kate puts on her best exasperated face, strutting towards him with her hands on hips. _"Are we LOST?"_

"Why don't you tell me, _you_ were s'posed to be the directions expert here!"

"I was _asleep!"_

"Yeah, I was asleep, I'm pregnant, onions are _healthy_, always some excuse! Where's the map?" He demands, looking through his pack.

"I don't know." Kate shrugs noncommittally to his aggravation.

"Did you mistake it for an onion _and eat it?"_

Kate bites back a bellow of laughter, keeping to her plan and her _'straight'_ face, "Look, I don't care _where_ we are, it looks safe enough, I'm going back to sleep. Why don't _you_ figure it out!"

"What!" He yelps indignantly as she begins to clamber back into her make-shift bed. He draws her back out, "Wait a minute, you think just caus you're _incubating_, that gives you special privileges here?"

"I need my sleep Sawyer!" She thinks how much sleep she'd just had.

"Well maybe I need mine too!" He moves towards the back of the truck, "I'm getting some shut eye, and when I wake up, we'd better be in Ely."

As Sawyer clambers up onto the flatbed and yanks up the covers with pointed ire, she turns to Jack with a wry smile… and pulls the maps from her inside pocket. Jack shakes his head in disbelief. "You were right. I have no idea how, or _why_ you two work."

* * *

Sawyer pulls the tarp and blankets high, and mentally berates Jack for getting them lost. Just before the car begins to move off, he feels a freezing hand shake his shoulder. "Jack _goddamn_ it I –" But as he pulls the tarp down, the voices rip through his mind making him yell in pain –

_Ain't nobody puttin' a bullet in you, brother_

And as the world trembles with the power of the voices thrumming through his mind, a figure leans in close. Bright orange parka still mud splattered, glasses shattered, hair soaked to his forehead, Garrett smiles,

"_Thank God I found you. You're in so much trouble." _

* * *

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	41. Swimming in an ocean made for drowning

**Chapter 41**

**Swimming through an ocean made for drowning**

_All alone at the end of the evening_

_And the bright lights have faded to grey_

_I was thinking about a woman who might have loved me_

_And I never knew_

_Y'know I've always been a dreamer_

_Spent my life running round_

_And its so hard to change, can't seem to settle down_

_But the dreams I've seen lately_

_They're all turning out, and burning out, and turning out the same_

- Take it to the Limit, The Eagles

The rush of the wind drives the air from Sawyer's lungs as that icy hand radiates on his shoulder, but he feels so faraway – wired to the teeth, struck dumb by the flapping orange parka vision before him... those cracked glasses, hair still splattered to his forehead by rain from an Island a whole world away, from another _lifetime_... and a pink flower of blood on his shirt from the gunshot wound in his flickering chest...

_Ain't nobody putting a bullet in you brother_

"_Garrett..." _Sawyer can barely catch his voice, _"Oh God, Garrett..."_

"You have to..." Garrett was wild, flickering away, his words indecipherable, "Don't trust... a trap... _Sawyer you have to –"_

And then Sawyer is staring out into the rushing nothingness, stunned, and very much alone. His heart is beating so hard, the world shifts in and out of focus...

_Guys, I started the campfire!_

Last words, last words... Sawyer brings his hand back and slaps himself, hard. The whirling landscape sharpens again. Christ, had he been dreaming? Maybe it was just his over-tired imagination playing tricks – Garrett didn't look like any ghost he had seen yet... but he still felt that icy imprint on his shoulder, and knew that whatever the hell had just happened, Garrett had been trying to tell him something... something so important he was fighting his way from beyond to tell him. He fleetingly looked up into the glow of the cab where Kate and Jack were having an animated conversation, wondered if he should tell them – but then, tell them what exactly? What had Garrett even really said, that they were in trouble, that they shouldn't trust something, that something was a trap..? It wasn't enough to go on, and definitely not enough to burden Kate with, not in her condition. So hunkering back down beneath the blanket, Sawyer tried to force himself to sleep, knew that it would be a long, long night...

* * *

There was one last task which needed to be sorted before they could cross over the border into Canada, and Sawyer left Kate and Jack camping out in a field near Ely (which Kate had finally found) to go and chase up fake ID's in a nearby lumber town. He was due to meet with an old con buddy called Kentucky Bob, who he'd pulled numerous jobs with in his heyday. The guy was as untrustworthy as they got, but he owed Sawyer big, because the last job they pulled had been before Sawyer was sent to jail for the first time. He'd taken the heat for Kentucky, and however much of a lying, cheating lowlife Kentucky may have been, there was still an honor amongst thieves. Sawyer had spoken to one of his girls, knew he'd come through with the goods for him.

The lumber town looked as backwater as it got, and as soon as Sawyer pulled up into it he felt a soft sadness wash over him – this place was as dead-end as it got. He'd grown up in places like this in the deep south, and he swore once he could make it to the lights of the big cities he would never come back anyplace like this...

Wooden sidewalks, old cars, dirt rutted roads. He scuffed along, head bowed; the tiny main-street looked like something out of the pioneer age, and he half expected to see moose jaunting down the street. Maybe a couple of cavemen. Christ he wanted out already... God, all the high hopes him and Kentucky had spouted as cocky kids, of all the things they'd done and still had to do, and this is where they'd ended up... Kentucky living in dead-beat nowhere, him on the run...

But he knew why Kentucky would have chosen to live out here. Man must have gotten himself in trouble with the law and had to '_disappear'_ for awhile... but he had a bad feeling about this suddenly, as he spotted the Whiskey Galore Bar across the street, where a burnished yellow light drifted out onto the pitted sidewalk. Too late too back out now. So clenching his jaw, he stepped foot inside.

If the streets had looked like they were outdated, the bar itself looked to be a relic of times gone by – stuffed deer heads stared down quizzically from the pine walls, of which every available inch was covered with enough rifles to start a small war, beer placards, a loggers haven. For all the lifelessness out on the streets, this place was actually heaving with people – crowds of heavy duty workmen downing beers after long days felling trees or whatever shit they did, their women dressed up in cheap clothes. A small country and western band had amassed a crowd on the dance floor and were merrily whooping away, as if in defiance of their melancholy.

As Sawyer found a small table a pretty barmaid came swishing through the crowd, bent over (deliberately flashing her ample chest) and with a smile and a wink placed a bottle of Jack Daniels on the table. _Compliments of the house, _apparently he'd already been spied by Kentucky from the depths of the smoggy bar. He pushed the bottle aside, wouldn't put it past the bastard to poison him rather than give him what he came for. Sawyer was taking no chances – and then he looked out into the churning crowd, and his stomach knotted and did a kamikaze back flip into his throat.

For a moment, everything else seemed to just disappear. The noise, the humidity, the people, everything. Because a redhead was working her way towards the table through the crowd, and Christ, Oh God he knew who that was_, but please don't let it be true..._

The redhead sat at the table opposite him, and he still hadn't recovered enough of his mind to form speech as she gave him a slow smile, wordlessly poured two glasses of whiskey. After she had downed her glass she sat back and appraised him critically... and then her cold face lit into a sunny smile. The southern drawl mirrored his, the slightly husky, even voice which had always captivated him was exactly as he remembered it... "Goddamn it, I didn't think you'd actually come. Oh man, you must be in trouble."

"_Nandy..." _Sawyer sighed, quickly necking the whiskey, feeling he needed all the Dutch courage he could get to deal with this, "Holy shit Nands, _what the hell...?!"_

Nandy Tucker had been Kentucky's girl – an iron balled feisty broad who had an honest-to-goodness heart of gold... Sawyer always saw her as the Calamity Jane to his and Kentucky's Butch and Sundance, and God she'd run the roads with them for two whole years before the game was up... but he didn't think she'd still be mixed up with such a lowlife all these years on. Christ, she'd always seemed destined for greater things... not only was she an absolute knock-out, but she got under your _skin_; she was one of those bewitching gals, always had been... and yet now, Sawyer sees something he can barely believe... Nandy Tucker, the first real, full-blooded lusty love of his life is _older_.

Sawyer sees fine lines about her eyes, the way her flame-red hair is no longer so shiny or well-kept, the way her lips have thinned into a hardened set. Her liquid brown eyes are tired... and he suddenly wonders, oh God, has that happened to him too?! He hasn't looked at himself square in the daylight for as long as he could remember... _had he aged that much too?_

"What do you think the first thing was when I heard your voice?" Nandy was gazing at him with a small smile of nostalgia, and it was infectious. Immediately Sawyer felt a rush of pride, happiness as a steady beam lit his face,

"Kentucky, 1990, how could I forget...?" Ah, those were the days... Nandy, Kentucky and James, pulling one of their biggest cons ever, and roaring away along the open road, yellow cornfields, a haystack... and him and Nandy, naked as the day they came crying, getting their kicks. Nandy seemed to appreciate the memory too, chuckling;

"Man, we showed them backwater folk how to make use of a haystack!"

"Jesus, that was the _worst_ place I ever –"

"I _know_, all them scratches on my back, I couldn't sleep lying down for a week –!"

"Aww, you never were one for _sleep_ Nands…" In the mess that his life has become, on the run, hunted, he's forgotten that young cocksure kid ever existed, these past months… for all the sins the three of them committed back then, they'd been a _family_, a fucked up family who looked out for each other for a time. He remembered the first time he had been with Nandy, the first time he had truly made any attempt at love-making, not just screwing or fucking, way back when the affair was in it's infancy; he remembered how the fire had raged through him, burning him up like a fever, how they had moved together, caught up in a rare and fleeting connection, a desperate guttering fire like a match struck in the darkness for a breathless, guttering instant, and God, Holy fucking Lord on high he had never felt so alive... And again he is hit by that awful wave of sadness, that head-trip, the bleak reality of what they've turned out like... how did things ever turn out this way?

He suddenly feels hopelessly old... he'd known this chick when he was in his prime, scamming and living the high life... and as selfish as it is, he suddenly wishes nothing more than to get back those sun bleached days of youth, where the only things that mattered was cons, loyalty, free love, and the open road... such a wasted, lost youth.

"Always thought you'd come back for me one day." Her head is bowed, a cascade of tired red curls obscuring her face, as Sawyer's stomach began to contort... because this is what he'd been afraid of, this is what he'd been dreading – as soon as he saw her again, he was helpless prey to the old feelings. Did first love ever really go away? But he couldn't look at her. He knew what she wanted, needed to hear... but so many years had gone by, by some miracle he had found _Kate_...

She looks up at him, and he knows suddenly he doesn't have to say anything. His silence had been rejection enough, and it's painful to wait in the deafening roar of the crowd, just drown in all that noise and wait for her to speak her piece... because she scowls briefly, pours another glass of whiskey, and shakes her head as she lights a cigarette. Her voice is now loaded with bitterness, "Oh right... Oh, yeah... how could I forget? Our mantra, do you remember our mantra Jimmy?"

"Nands, _don't –"_

"Christ you _should_, you were the one who lived by it... 'Love doesn't exist, its just four little letters, like fuck. I don't want love, I just want to feel wanted.'..."

She was right... that had been their pact, their excuse to avoid any real 'feelings' from entering their affair, and that was what had destroyed it in the end. Unable to stand the rejection in her voice, see what he has done to her, Sawyer grits his teeth and blindly clenches hold of matters in hand, tries to stay focused;

"Where's _Kentucky_, Nands...?"

Nandy gives a humorless chuckle, breathes a stream of smoke and says, "Oh yeah... K.B... why don't you come with me... I'll take you to him."

And as they moved through the crowd, Nandy held his hand in hers and he felt so sick, because even after all these years, after everything they'd both been through, she _still_ had the power to make Sawyer tingle. She still gave him a rush, and as they passed into the shadowy back hall, the clamor of the bar receding to a thumping drone, he was suddenly terrified she wasn't taking him to Kentucky at all – as she lead him into a dim yellow lit office and closed the door, he was terrified she was gonna turn and jump on him, and he would be helpless but to respond. Oh fuck he couldn't be here, _he knew this was a bad idea –_

But she was standing by the mantle, arm draped along the fireplace and he kept his distance as though his life depended on it and snapped, "Well?"

She frowned at him, cocked her head. "What do you mean _well?"_

"Well, where _is_ he?"

And then something hit Nandy – her face shifted, and for a moment Sawyer saw a horrible sadness in her. It stunned him. Then her mask shifted back into place, and she swallowed heavilly, as though trying to work up the courage to tell him something. And that feeling that he had, that bad feeling just _escalated_ in the silence which followed, as he took a cautious step forth and demanded, "Where the hell _is_ he Nandy?!"

She met his eyes, her brown ones misted over, and shook her head with a weary sadness and said, "What are you talking about, Jimmy...? He's right here."

And finally Sawyer looked to where her hands were... what they were _holding_.

A silver urn. No bigger than her hand... No. No, no, it didn't make sense... Sawyer met her eyes, furiously searching for answers only to find none, nothing... her throat was working, like either she was trying to speak or trying to hold in sobs, and she took his hands, "Heart attack, five years back now..."

"Why didn't you tell me?! On the phone, when I spoke to you, you could have _said_ –"

"Because I knew if I told you, you wouldn't _come!"_ The fact that after all this time she even cared if she saw him again was such a slap to the face for Sawyer. See, he'd never mattered to anybody anywhere _near_ that much, not before Kate, maybe...

Reeling a little, Sawyer balanced against the heavy oak desk, breathing deeply... Kentucky was gone, dead, and shit guy had been a lowlife cheating scum-bag, but he had been almost a _brother_, at a better time in Sawyer's life... they'd been through so much together... and the fake ID's. Oh God, what in hell is he going to do now...?! "Nandy..." God, is he really that hoarse?! He clears his throat, scrubbing a hand over his eyes, "Oh Christ honey, I came all this way..."

Her voice is icy and the words stab him, "Don't worry... since he died, I've been keeping things together. I meant what I said on the phone. _I'll_ help you."

She pulls a large jangling key-ring from her belt, selects a tiny key. Ramming it into a large metal filing cabinet she withdraws a small metal cash box, unlocks that too. She pulls out a number of manila envelopes and selects two, dropping them to the desk with a slap. Sawyer can't meet her fierce gaze as he pulls the envelopes towards him, checks the contents. As he folds them into his inner jacket pocket, he feels her hot gaze boring into his head... they stand in electric silence a moment, both wanting to say so much... Sawyer knows that whatever has been building between them since they clapped eyes on each other is about to erupt, and just as he moves to leave quickly Nandy's voice rings out –

"What kind of trouble you in?"

At the door, Sawyer ceases... "Nothing I can't handle."

"You're _not_ handling it though, are you?" The pain in her voice stuns him and he glances back at her – her hurt is clear as she clenches her hands tight, "You ain't never backed down from nothing, _nobody_ so long as I've known you. You always stood your ground, fought for what's yours. So don't _bullshit_ me. Whoever's got you goosed, it's _bad_, caus they got you _running_ Jimmy..."

He wanted so badly to hug her, knew that he couldn't let himself get anywhere near her. He settled for gritting, "Not for much longer."

She didn't seem convinced at all, could always read him like a fucking book and he knew it. Shaking her head as she replaced the cash-box in the filing cabinet and locked up, she sighed, "If it's small-time shit you'll be fine. But Jimmy, if it's the Feds, you may as well quit. You know that, right?"

"Don't say that..."

"It's true..." She suddenly blazed with a fire he thought she had long lost, as she turns on him "Kentucky spent the worst years of his life in hiding from those bastards. It got to the point where he was jumping at every shadow, thinking it was a cop out to arrest him – bastard even accused _me_ of spying on him and reporting back to them! He went out of his mind... I don't _want_ that for you. We're not kids anymore... So for Christsakes, be a man, do your time, then get on with your _life_. Don't spend your life shadow-boxing. It's not worth the pain, trust me..."

Oh God, if she only knew the psychotic mind-implant wielding bastards who were out on his tail... "It's not that easy, Nands..."

She laughed, but it was maybe the saddest laugh he'd ever heard as she turned with a terrible smile, "You're a stubborn son-of-a-bitch...! _Always were..."_ And Sawyer feels a great sense of sadness because of the doom so inexorably stamped on her face, as she looks up at him... suddenly, they have become close. He doesn't know how. But Oh God, he knows his pulse is racing, can smell her hair, _shampoo_, and he can see the yellow flecks in her dark eyes, and he is falling – it's like running headlong into a brick wall and not even putting his hands out to stop himself, as she whispers, "You're trying to swim in an ocean made for drowning, boy… I hope to God you know that." Her lips mere inches away...

And Sawyer looked down at her face, the face he could have loved as a young man, the face with whom he'd woken up besides and shared so much, laughed and cried with, those lip were drawing him in like they always did... when he saw something wrong. _There are no freckles_.

He pulls back suddenly with a jolt, clarity rushing through him as he did so. There are no freckles dusted on this face, this isn't the woman he needs... she may be the one he _wants_, has _always_ wanted so badly... but not the one he needs anymore. Oh God, that actually hurt. He felt like he'd burnt a bridge that somehow led back to someplace safe, a younger self that he'd all but forgotten ever existed...

"You won't find what we had again," She isn't speaking coldly, or with any anger – just a resignation which strikes somehow deeper than any other emotion, "In a few years you'll be old, your good looks'll be gone, and who'll want you then?"

"She might… I really… I think she might, Nands. I got me a woman now, and man she ain't no peach, feisty gals got more issues than me, but she's pregnant… I think I love her. I gotta make it work…"

"You really believe that?"

"I have to."

"And she trusts you...?"

"Yeah..."

This seems to end the conversation, and the unsaid disbelief in Nandy's eyes says it all – it says _she'll learn. _And that look brands him hot and hard as Nandy turns away, sighing finally, "Innocence is fine for them that's got it. Us that's lost it ain't never gonna get it back. Don't come back here."

How do you say goodbye to someone when they've meant so much? When friendships have been destroyed, when there aren't words enough to say a tenth of the depth you care for somebody, when you can't love them the way they want? When you can't make it right with anything but a kiss, an illicit kiss, the indescribable rush of connection that is only felt through making love?

As Sawyer found his way back out into the street, the air mountain cold and deathly silent after the roar of the bar, he felt like for all his fidelity to Kate, he had never felt like he had betrayed anyone so badly in his life.

Sawyer kills the engine of the dodge in a small grove of trees just off the highway, looks across the washed out prairie, bathed in the soft yellow glow from the headlights. And as his tired gaze travels out through the waving rye, he sees Kate asleep by the campfire, huddled beneath a heap of blankets, as Jack sits on watch. And he suddenly has the strangest feeling – he felt like he was fading, somehow. Crazily he clenches his hands on the wheel to make sure he is really _here_... because looking in on the fire lit campground, he suddenly feels like whilst Jack seems to be growing every passing day, filling out, becoming _whole_, he feels like he is slowly vanishing...

Like _he_ is the ghost in this situation...

Shaking off that feeling in annoyance, Sawyer traipses through the grasses into the crackling fire light, where he holds a finger to his lips when Jack moves to greet him – he doesn't want to wake Kate. Instead, he sits out of earshot, hunkers down in the warm night, and pulls the remains of the bottle of Jack Daniels from his pocket, deliberately ignoring Jack's raised eyebrow and look of concern.

After a moment, Jack shuffles quietly to sit next to him, and Sawyer sighs as the doctor studies him, prods the crackling fire with a stick, "Are you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost..."

"Very funny, Jackass. They teach you wisecracks in med school?"

"Sure," Jack grins, squinting at him as his smile fades, "But seriously... did you get what you needed?"

Did he get what he needed... that feeling of wanting Nandy and _needing_ Kate rose, but God, it was something he could never speak about, and he knew it. So he settled for dropping the envelopes into Jack's lap and nodding. He snuck a look at Kate to make sure she was really asleep before popping a smoke, lying back. And before he even knew he was speaking, the words were out;

"You ever feel really… _old?"_

Jack cocked his head, and Sawyer couldn't believe he'd just said that. "Its not something I worry about anymore." Jack quipped dryly, handing back the envelope.

And now he had started, Sawyer knew he couldn't stop. Because as soon as Jack had moved closer to him, Sawyer felt a very strange sensation – almost like the last of his energy was just draining away, being sapped clean into the earth beneath him... and that strange niggle ate away at the back of his mind, that he had felt _okay_ until Jack was near him...

"I saw Garrett tonight."

Sawyer watched Jack's reaction carefully out of the corner of his eye – if the doctor was surprised, he barely registered. He went kind of stiff... and he seemed strangely calm as he said, "He's made it back...?"

"Yeah... Yeah." And the loss of strength is beginning to make Sawyer feel a little light headed, he lies back full in the grass. He feels distant, not completely in touch with his body as he looks up at Jack, silhouetted in the fire, "But he's different... barely there, y'know? Not like you... Not _whole_."

And before a heavy sleep overcame Sawyer, he could have _sworn_ he saw Jack bow his head, look away. And the doctor said in a soft voice, "I don't know why, Sawyer. I don't have any answers..."

But somehow looking at him in those fleeting moments before sleep, Sawyer couldn't help but wonder if that was really true.

* * *

Swaying rye stretches up in dancing waves of gold towards a crystal white sky, as Kate awakens beneath a pile of blankets, shivering. The weather has changed, and as she stands stiffly, stretching, she drags the blanket up with her – it has grown cold overnight. Yawning widely and rubbing sleep from her eyes, she shivers and squints outwards at the misty field of rye. The dodge sits a short distance away, but she can't see either Jack or Sawyer... she remembers suddenly the anxiety that she'd fallen asleep with, hoping to God that Sawyer would make it back safely, that he would be careful... but she trusted him enough to let him go. It has taken a long time to be able to say that, but she finally thinks she does...

They are on the border of many things, it seems – they are not just leaving this country, but they are leaving behind the cops, the constant worry that they could be apprehended at any point. They have crossed the point of no return with the baby, they have finally made uneasy peace with it – or at least, Kate thinks, they are biding their time until it's born... which will be on the run, in hiding... as she looks out into the haze, she pulls the blanket around her tighter, suddenly thinking _what a state to be in... _

And then her eyes pick out something moving in the tall rye coming down the sloping hillside ahead. Dirty blonde hair, shoulders slumped like they carried the weight of the world on their shoulders instead of just a tin bucket in his hand... and maybe feeling her eyes on him from across the vast yellow ocean, Sawyer slowly stopped.

She met his eyes, and felt a huge wave of almost knee-buckling relief. She hadn't allowed herself to go out of her mind with worry when he hadn't come straight back last night, but she was helpless to feel almost sick with the relief that he was back now. And she sees the slow honeyed beam spread across his cheeks, as he starts towards her. As he gets closer, she grins;

"Is that a bucket in your hand or are you just happy to see me?"

"God, you don't know how happy I am to see you." He drops the bucket on a nearby rock, as she opens the blanket, takes him into the folds. He buries his head in her neck and enfolds her in a tight embrace which shocks her a little at it's intensity. As she pulls back, she looks into his face, puzzled – he looks like he barely slept last night. Pale, dark circles under his eyes... stroking his dimpled cheek, she says, "You okay?"

"I am now." He brought his lips to hers in a sure kiss, lacing his arms about her warm waist beneath the scratchy blanket –

A deliberate cough drifts through the air, with loud footsteps through the rye. Sawyer pulls back from the kiss, looks over Kate's shoulder – and of course, Jack is walking towards them. Wonderful. But in the daylight, Sawyer is glad to see he still looks as white and dead as ever, as he tried to put to rest those niggling feelings that Jack was getting just a little _too_ whole...

"Well Saint Jack looks like he's about ready to feast on your soul!" He grimaces down to Kate, then cocks his head at Jacks approaching form, "Are you even _trying_ to look human anymore?"

"Hate to say it Sawyer, but you look worse than me. Maybe you should lay off the booze, huh?" Jack approached and took the bucket of water, as the group moved towards the dodge.

"You've been drinking?" Kate's eyes flick to Sawyer in irritation.

"Well at least kids don't use me as a booster seat –" Sawyer mutters at Jack.

"Give it a rest Sawyer, I still can't get the chocolate stains out of my slacks –" Jack throws open the hood of the dodge, pouring the bucket of water into the hissing radiator.

"Kumbayaaaaaaa M'Lord!"

"Sawyer I swear to God –"

"Enough! You, into the truck." She pushes Jack towards the cabin of the dodge, and hands on hips she turns to Sawyer. "And _you_ – why were you drinking?!"

* * *

The final drive towards the border was fraught. Kate dodctored the fake ID's with their passport photographs, and now as they approached, held onto the envelopes tightly. Sawyer told her to let him do all the talking – as they pulled up to the border gateway, a six lane turnstile system, Sawyer drew the dodge to a halt, sweating heavily – they had planned to cross at just before 5am, hoping to catch the night-shift on their last hours work, so they might have their guards down a little...

It worked. The kid that came shuffling out of the toll-booth reminded Sawyer crazily of the acne faced pizza flipper in the Simpsons, with a pre-pubescent voice. He wanted to laugh out loud – he'd been expecting all sorts, but honest to God, never this... kid couldn't be more than twenty.

As the kid gestured at him to wind his window down, Sawyer handed him the paperwork. The kids voice was crackly, and he wiped sleep from his eyes with a yawn. "Morning folks!"

"Morning yourself," Sawyer grinned widely, praying that Nandy's ID's would pull through for them. She'd never done him wrong before...

As it happened, the kid barely even glanced at them. He scanned the paperwork as he lurched around the dodge, checked the registration, and just as he was moving back to the window, he stopped.

His hand was frozen, mid arch, as he reached to give Sawyer back his paperwork... and God, Kate and Sawyer froze. Time seemed to stop. Because the kid was staring in the back of the dodge with a strangely fixed expression, like he was trying to talk himself out of believing what he was seeing... what _was_ he seeing!?

Sawyer's eyes flickered to the rearview mirror, and with a terrible cold sinking feeling he realized the kid was staring _straight at JACK. _The doctor was hunched down behind their suitcases, staring back at the kid helplessly...

And Sawyer said sharply, "There a problem?"

Sawyer's voice seemed to snap the kid awake, and he cast a hopelessly confused look at him, "What?!"

"We good to go or what?"

The kid nodded, scribbling quickly over a number of carbon print sheets, ripping a pink slip off and stapling it to the border patrol papers quickly. And Sawyer saw his fingers trembling, the kids breath catching in his throat...

As soon as he had shoved the papers back through the window at Sawyer, the kid had turned away and clambered back into his booth. He buzzed the car through the turnstile, and as Sawyer floored the gas, he passed the booth and saw the kid sitting with his head in his hands...

The air is so thick with confusion in the cab of the dodge that it takes a good couple of minutes for Kate and Sawyer to even begin to know what to say... rain now pounds on the windshield, a heavy, ominous hiss, and finally Kate breaks the terse silence, and breathes "Sawyer... God, what just _happened_ there...?"

"I don't know. But I'm gonna find out."

He jams the steering wheel hard to the right and the dodge swerves off the highway along the hard shoulder where it squeals to a stop, and before Kate can stop him Sawyer has jumped out of the cab, incensed –

"Sawyer – _Sawyer wait –"_

But he is tramping around the muddy bank to the rear of the dodge where Jack is already standing, arms outstretched and placating as Sawyer bellows furiously –

"How did he see you, huh? Huh?! He saw you, I know he did –"

Trying to pull him back, Kate breathes in the rain, "Sawyer stop, _think about what you're saying!"_

"No – NO, I know what I saw, he was looking right at you _and you know it Doc!_ Why the hell could he see you?! _Fuckin' TALK!"_

"I don't know – honest to God _Sawyer I don't know –"_

"_You know,"_ Sawyer was beside himself now, as all the notions of Jack's appearance, Garrett's frantic warnings, his own feelings of fading near Jack all came to a head, "You got _something_ going on, I don't know what it is, _but you're different –"_

"Stop – _just stop!"_ And Kate grabs him roughly, breaking through his anger. She centers him with her gaze, talks directly into his face, "You're being paranoid... that's all it is. There's no way anybody else will ever see him, Sawyer..." And he sees the pain fleet through her eyes as she looks out to Jack, her rain drenched shoulders slumping as she murmured, "Jack's dead... nobody can see him but us."

Sawyer pulled away, unconvinced and slammed back into the dodge's cab, leaving Kate to look up at Jack helplessly.

* * *

Once they have traveled a fair distance into Manitoba from the border, Kate directs Sawyer to pull into a small national park called the Kicking Horse, just outside of Brandon. The day has brightened enough for them to venture out of the dodge, and they eat lunch from a small burger van, the only place open in the park, being out of season and all. The place is deserted, and no'one objects when Kate helps herself to a shovel from a nearby store room, except Sawyer who is certain she has now got a craving for blunt heavy objects – he'd rather have her onion breath or whipped cream topped salads anyday. But she wouldn't tell him why she needed it, instead just drew him on. They go for a walk to stretch their legs through the tall pine forests until Kate finally sees what she has been searching for. Unaware of what in hell she's got in her head now, Sawyer begrudgingly lets her drag him up a small sloping hillside where the land levels out and the view of the national park is breathtaking. A sea of bobbing, rain crusted trees, their heads rustling together in a soft crashing sound which reminds him of the waves on the Island... and when he turns, he sees just why Kate wanted to come up here so bad.

On top of the hillside is a cast iron statue of a rearing black stallion, it's mane cast back, it's mouth frozen open in a perpetual cry. And she is standing beneath it, a small box in her hands. _Her time capsule. _

Shaking his head, he takes her hands, all earlier arguments and bad feelings forgotten – the very real sentiment behind the burying of the time capsule had always stricken him – something for their child to remember them by if anything should happen...

"You ready?" Kate breathed, handing him the shovel.

They buried the capsule and made their way back to the dodge as the sun struggled out from behind the heavy white clouds. And just as they reached the hillside where Jack awaited at the truck, Kate took Sawyer's hand and ceased. He turned to look unwillingly, hoping she didn't want him to start digging any more holes – but she was staring out at the distance, a faraway look on her face...

"Look," She said, and as he did so, he didn't see where she was looking, firstly. Just the rundown campsite in the valley below, a few trailers, a funfair... oh no. Oh no...

"It's a funfair!" For the first time in quite awhile, Sawyer saw the glimpses of kiddy Kate inside, felt a small touch of pleasure – she always was a hoot in that state. And now, she sidled up to him with a bat of her eyelashes, and sighed, "Don't you remember what you said at Shaconage? That one day you'd take me to Dollywood?"

"I never said that!"

"Yes you did! Or, if you didn't you should have. We might never get to Dollywood, but I want this new year to be perfect – Dharma, the running, I want to forget it and be normal... just for one night...?"

He suddenly realized what she was trying so hard to put into words – after the strangely emotional experience of burying the time capsule, both had been thinking a lot about the baby, what the future held... but now, right now, in the present, Sawyer realizes that they are already a family... not the family he may necessarily have pictured, but they were going to be parents... and if this all ended tomorrow, if something did happen... the least they could do was make the most of what they had. Spend New Year as they meant to go on...

And then Kate leant forth and whispered in his ear, "And I'll be damned if I'm gonna pass up the opportunity to whup your ass at hook a duck."

"You gotta be kidding me...!" He laughed out loud, shaking his head in as his laughter slowly died into a competitive set, "No...? Not kidding? Whup my ass at hook a duck, I'm a _master_ at hook a duck girl, you don't stand a chance!"

"That sounds like a challenge..." She grins, pressing a kiss to his lips.

"_I love a challenge..."_ He breathes into her mouth, returning it as she drags him down the hillside.

The funfair is a merry gypsy affair which actually backs onto a small circus, replete with Big Top, Carousel, the works. As night begins to fall, Kate Jack and Sawyer enter the funfair amidst drunken crowds of new-years revelers, and Sawyer suddenly feels like a teenager again. All that would be left to complete the illusion was giving hickeys to a chick round back of the helter-skelter, breaking bones on the bumper cars, or throwing up in the hook a duck vat after too much Thunderbird. Ah, to be young!

Kate demands candyfloss, and Sawyer gets mad when he doesn't hit the bell on the 'test your strength' stall, but the owner winks at Kate and hands her a bug eyed teddy bear anyway with a sly smile as Jack hangs back sullenly crunching a toffee apple. After milling around for a while in the crowds, Sawyer turns to Jack and wraps his arms about Kate, "Hit the road Jack. Why don't you go hang with your buddies on the GhostTrain and leave us mortals to our… desires of the flesh…"

"Very funny," Jack rolls his eyes, and as Sawyer starts away Kate lingers with Jack for a moment,

"Will you be okay for awhile?" She feels bad about leaving him here – the funfair is obviously no fun for a ghost.

"Sure." Jack shrugs halfheartedly.

And when Kate turns, Sawyer has disappeared again. Hands on hips, she works her way through the crowd, wondering where in hell he could have run off to at such short notice. He's nowhere in the crowd – she moves aside, down by the Big Top where a small row of brightly colored tents flap about in the night, multicolored lights glimmering like a gaudy necklace strung through the night... and recognizable shoulders, walking about...

She sneaks up behind him, and tickles his sides. He jumps and turns, a cone of candyfloss in each hand. "Goddamn it! _There_ you are! Was looking for you all over –"

Kate narrows her eyes with a grin, eyes traveling out to the tent which had diverted Sawyer's attention – where an hourglass silhouette flickers over the flaps. "Since when do I hang out naked in a tent that says _'Dancers only'?!"_

"In my wildest –" He starts and then is stunned when Kate covers his mouth with her own. They duck as the dancer exits her tent, and when she is out of sight, Kate meets his eyes.

"Desires of the flesh, huh?"

"Freckles..." Sawyer warns as her hand tightens on his, drags him to his feet towards the tent, _"Freckles what in hell –"_ She silences him again with another drugging kiss as she pushes them inside the cramped tent. As their kisses grow breathless he gasps into her mouth, "What's got into you sweetheart?!"

"You," She grins, pulling back. And as she takes in the small tent, the stuffed dresser, the Hollywood light-bulb mirror, the dresser screen, the rail of outfits... her eyes light up. And Sawyer is all dimples as she pulls a magicians three piece suit from one of the rails, raises her eyes at him inquisitively. He takes it wordlessly.

And as he quickly strips out of his jacket, he watches as she moves behind the dresser screen, her silhouette long and lean on the yellowing screen amidst the guttering shadows. Oh God... he can feel his temperature rising. God lord... the rustle of her jeans dropping to the floor, her vest thrown over the top of the screen... a flash of her hands as they sort through the rail of spangly clothes... gulping, he quickly steps into the magicians pants, grins when he sees the magic wand in the suit jacket, and as he turns, placing a nearby top hat on his head, he slows... watches in rapture as the figure behind the screen shakes down her hair, draws on stockings... hands extend from the shadows, pull on slinky black gloves up porcelain arms... Holy mother of...

And then she steps out of the shadows, and for a moment, he just forgets to breathe. Kate is unrecognizable... she has dug out a skin tight red ball gown which drips with dazzling crimson sequins. Every curve, every groove accentuated, and with every move she makes the light dances off those sequins, hypnotising him... smiling softly, he pulls out the magicians wand, waves it about enticingly, as though to draw her near... she bites back a mischievous beam, crosses the mere footsteps between them, ties up his bow-tie, takes his top hat, puts it on her head... she looks like Jessica _Rabbit_ in that mind-bogglingly lusty dress… His hands rasp over sequins…

They collapse into the makeshift bed, as the temperature rises... hands running over skin, traveling down lower, _lower_ – Sawyer sucks in a startled breath as her hand lingers below, and her eyes dance down at him as she kisses him deeply – she's _teasing_ him! He can't believe it as she giggles throatily into his mouth and he bucks his hips indignantly, urging her to hurry up – his hands grope in the semi darkness for her zipper, yearning to feel her back, her waist, her breasts – breathing is hard, their kisses grow frantic in battle as she climbs atop him, clenching fists in his hair, driving him half wild, covering his face with kisses... he snags the zipper, tugs – tugs again – no. _No_... _the thing's stuck!_ No... he yanks harder – the material squeals in protest –

And when Kate looks down at him in mock horror, he is helpless but to burst out laughing. This is too much... and seeing him break out laughing, she follows, desperately pulling at the offending zipper indignantly. He hasn't heard her laugh so hard in months – it only makes the whole situation worse, more funny as she grapples with it, his sides ache, muscles cramp – god bless Kate, she is mortified as she struggles to unzip it –

"The hell did you have to pick _this_ one for --?!" He breathes, and she glares at him in outrage,

"It's a size four, a size _four_ -!"

"So why in hell are you _stuck?!"_

"I'm a size four, I say so, its _true_!"

"You can _also_ say you're a magical fairy Princess from the Land of Rainbow town but that don't make it so!"

Suddenly a terrific CRACK rips through the night sky. The tent is suddenly burst into a rainbow spectrum of falling jewel colors – Kate meets Sawyer's eyes in instant childlike excitement and yanks him up by his hand –

"Wait –" He breathes, longing just to throw her back down to the bed – "Where in hell you goin'?!" And as she throws back the tent flap, she splays her arms wide, like she is giving him a present, and for just a moment, Sawyer is blinded.

The sky is on fire. These aren't just fireworks, these are like giant oceans of light exploding and tearing through the sky with deafening fury and grace. He's never seen anything like it. And the chant which is rising through the fairground is _HAPPY NEW YEAR! HAPPY NEW YEAR! _

Sawyer looks down at Kate... "You feel the storm baby?"

"I feel it..."

"The really big ones are the best, with sheet lightning all across the sky and thunder that gets you, really _gets_ you in here..." He says in a soft, considered tone... and she looks up at him in slowly dawning amazement as she recognises her words from The Oceanic Princess, so long ago, "It's cleansing… and it's so big… kinda makes you feel small… and everything you've done feels even smaller…" Something about the way he is speaking reaches right down inside and ignites sorrow, lust, love, as he takes her face in his hands; like he really _is_ a magician and has somehow hypnotised her... she is enraptured by him, his drawl wrapping around _her_ _words_... "Until you're just standing out there… in the blanket rain, soaked through but too gone to give a damn… and the thunder's in _here_… and you feel good again. _Clean_…"

Her throat stings as she says, "You remembered…"

The chanting takes on epic proportions...

_Ha__ppy New Year! Happy New Year!_

And Kate looks up at him and smiles, remembering how he had summoned the storm for her, his rain drenched words to her after, and she grins devilishly as she wraps her arms about his neck and affects his drawl, "Hell, you want a happy new year sweetheart? I'll give you the best one you ever saw."

And a roguish grin lights up his face – that's a sentiment he can get behind. Locking his arms about her waist he lifts her up easily with intent – _and there is a heady rip._ As they cease a moment, looking into each other in confusion, their eyes travel down together in unison... to see Kate's dress now yawns open at the sides.

And as Kate winces, looks back up at Sawyer against the exploding night sky, he brushes a kiss on her upturned nose and breathes, _"Who needs a can opener?"_

They turn and stumble back inside the tent, their laughter ringing uninhibited, their silhouettes dancing in a great loping shadow dance on the whipping tent flaps.

* * *

**PLEASE REVIEW ME!**

**God, it's taken so long to update, and I'm so sorry. This is only half of the original chapter which I lost, but I will try and get the next part out asap. Thank you so, so much for bearing with me...! Please let me know what you think! **


	42. Something to Believe in

Ah, the ever elusive **chapter 42**… man, if you guys are still with me after all this time, I owe you! So anyway. This is me _attempting _to stay true to the character connections in Lost. I hope it works for you!

**

* * *

****Chapter 42**

**Something to believe in**

_I lost all faith in my God, and his religion too_

_I told the Angels they could sing their songs to someone new_

_I lost all trust in my friends, I watched my heart turn to stone_

_I thought that I was left to walk this wicked world alone_

_If I don't believe in Jesus, how can I believe the Pope?_

_If I don't believe in heroin, how can I believe in dope?_

_If this life is for survival, how can I believe in sin?_

_In a world that gives you nothing, I need something to believe in…_

- Something to Believe in, Bon Jovi

The world spins in candy apple blurs of neon and machinery as Sawyer chases Kate breathlessly from the dancers tent back into the midst of the chaotic funfair. The New Years fireworks seem to have unleashed the inner party animals in the revelers, and the fair has taken on a carnival quality that Sawyer finds himself actually _enjoying_. He feels like a teenager again…! All that would be left to complete the illusion would be giving hickeys to a chick round back of the helter-skelter, breaking bones on the bumper cars, or throwing up in the hook a duck vat after too much Thunderbird. _Ah, to be young!_

Kate coiled like a girl possessed through the crowd, pulling him on… and when she slammed on the breaks, she was staring up at a blazing beast of a machine with childlike excitement. She shot him a coy look, and he sighs gruffly, feeling suddenly like a petulant five year old trying to convince his mother to let him ride the _'grown up rides'. _

"A Carousel? Freckles, let's go on the Drop O'Death! C'mon! It'll be fun!"

"You're kidding me right?" She places a hand over her belly, and Sawyer flushes as he remembers the soft swell he had kissed mere minutes ago. Naked, on the dancer tent floor… Kate rolls her eyes and gives him a dead arm. "And you can quit undressing me with your eyes, Sawyer! Carousel. _Now!"_

Mumbling obscenities beneath his breath, Sawyer puts up a token fight as he is unceremoniously yanked up the flashy steps onto the gargantuan ride. Flashbulbs blink and pop, and the tinkling organ music makes his damn ears bleed. _Women_…

He catches up with Kate on the platform to find her standing next to a plaster black stallion. Wordlessly, she meet his eyes. _Hope, freedom…_ this damn horse won't die. It strikes him suddenly as a stark reminder that they _aren't_ kids anymore. And in the midst of the merriment, he suddenly felt that melancholy blanket settle on his heart again. Jerked out of his reverie by the motion of the Carousel, a little numbly Sawyer helps Kate onto the horse and hoists himself up behind her. But that melancholy weight is freezing on his chest. Because no matter how he wishes it may be different, no matter how many fireworks displays exploded across the skies, no matter how many liberating fumbles they had in the gasping darkness, they couldn't escape the fact that they were not free. The world is spinning faster, faster… he buries his head in Kate's shoulder, finding comfort in that mass of dark curls…and he suddenly thinks their whole fucked up lives are like this goddamn head-ache inducing carousel; you could go round, round, faster and faster, and yet, you would always return to the same place to find you'd never actually gotten _anywhere_…

But the warmth of those curls against his face kept the dangerous thoughts at bay. If he couldn't believe in freedom and hope, he would believe in _Kate_. That would have to be enough… And as the Carousel begins to slow, the world slowly comes back into focus. The crowd is a churning mess… and suddenly, Sawyer freezes. For mere moments, his eyes fall upon a familiar head in that crowd, and he loses the ability to think. The rage comes down. The black, black rage. And suddenly, everything seems very far away. Everything bleaches, as he zooms in on that figure who is watching him, arms folded patiently. And now nothing else matters. _Rage, rage, blackest rage…!_

Before he knows what he's doing, Sawyer has vaulted down from the black stallion, is tearing through the spinning Carousel. Kids scream and wail as he barges past them, and he can vaguely hear Kate yelling in the back of his mind. But it doesn't stop him. In this black state, nothing can touch him. He's a fucking machine. He is cold.

_Deadly__ –_

As his feet hit the dirt of the fairground, he is already running. Shoving and darting through the maddeningly thick crowd – searching for that face – that fucking familiar _face!_ And then he is diving into the shadows of the looming Ferris wheel, and his prey bolts. Not fast enough – Sawyer's fists reach forth, and he grapples the gangly figure behind the peeling funhouse. The man is greased lightning in Sawyers frenzied grip, and as he wrestles with him, he shoves his head back with a crack against the wood, and a soft moan of pain escapes the man. Finally a slash of moonlight paints the features of the man with clarity, and Sawyer comes face to face with a very _human _ghost of his past…

"_Hibbs…" _The word falls out like a sick stone. And Hibbs gasps back, suffocating in Sawyer's grasp.

* * *

Her head is pounding so hard she can barely think straight. As Kate weaves through the dizzying crowds, she has lost sight of him – _what has HAPPENED?! Where has he gone, what could possibly have made him leave me here…?! _Kate hugged her thin sweater about her shoulder anxiously, a cold fear beginning to course through her veins as she realizes that Sawyer has vanished. Completely _gone_… the last thing she remembers is being torn from her fleeting childhood memories of Carousels and funfairs to feel Sawyer's hands clenching about her. And in the seconds before he had streaked away into the crazy night, she had felt black anger pouring from him… _and blind fear._

And now the crowd gushed around her, oblivious and uncaring to her plight as he mind raced ahead of itself crazily. _What will I do if something has happened to him? If he's been yanked out of my life in split-seconds? What will I DO – _She nearly shrieks when she feels a cold hand testingly take her shoulder. Wheeling about, she comes face to face with Jack, whose bemused look quickly falls to grave concern.

"Here you are, I've been looking all – what…? What is it? What's happened?"

Ducking into the shadows and seclusion beneath the Ferris wheel, Kate's frantic gaze picks desperately through the crowd over Jacks shoulders as the words spill out. "Sawyer just – I don't know what happened, if there's cops, or Agents – but Sawyer just vanished!"

"Agents?" Jack seems to blanch, if it's possible for ghosts to blanch. "Where?!"

"I don't know," Kate hisses in frustration, "But something's wrong – he'd never leave me like that. Never, not unless he'd seen something terrible…"

"Or _someone…"_ Jack's amber brown eyes seem to glow in the dark night, brighter than any gaudy funfair lights, and Kate's stomach constricts in fear…

"Come on. We have to _find him –"_

* * *

Hibb's face, barely inches from his own…! After all these years, how Sawyer had prayed for this situation, how he'd ached to wrap his hands around that spindly throat and choke the life out of it with his bare hands…! _"You don't wanna know what I swore I'd do to you if I ever saw you again…"_

Those sly eyes flicker callously, "Don't do anything you'll regret –"

And Sawyers hands tighten in their choke hold; "I'll regret leaving you _breathing –"_

"Wait – wait!" Hibbs gasps, drawing his hands up in a last display of protection. And for some reason, Sawyer ceases. How he found the strength to release Hibb's throat in those moments, he'd never know… but then Hibb's hissed; "You might want to hear what I've got to say first. You're in a lot of trouble, Sawyer… and whether you believe me or not, I'm here to help."

This was beautiful! The bastard that set him up, the sole reason for his waking nightmares, and a huge helping of his self loathing wanted to _help him?! _"Help?" Sawyer spluttered, the word sounding so absurd he suddenly had to fight the urge to burst into hysterics. _"Help?_ The last time you 'helped' me I killed an innocent man and went on the run! And you think I want your _help?" _

"I know about Dharma!" He cries as Sawyer threatens his throat with more pressure. "I know about the chips – I know about everything!"

An unbearably terse moment passed… and then Hibb's tried to slither from Sawyer's grip, and received another hard shove against the funhouse for his efforts. Just because Sawyer wasn't splattering his brains across the Funhouse didn't mean he still didn't _want_ to. And Hibb's breathed jaggedly, "Please… just hear me out. I can help. And there ain't many people that will help you, anymore…"

Helplessly curious about what in hell Hibb's could be talking about, Sawyer grudgingly let go of him. And he circled back and away, circling like a lion waiting to pounce should his quarry utter one wrong word.

"How did you track me down?"

"Nandi told me you'd passed through…" Hibb's cold eyes briefly flashed with affection. "Old contacts can mine gold, if you know what I mean."

"Why?" Sawyer rasped hoarsely, patience wearing thin. "Why did you go to all this trouble to find me? _You must have known I'd kill you for what you did to me –"_

And then Hibb's snake-like eyes gleamed with relish, as he stood straighter, massaging that sinewy neck, and he said…

"Because I know who _really_ killed your parents, Sawyer."

"How?" Sawyer felt as though he had been kicked in the stomach. And for some reason his implant was heating up, whirring wildly. _Run! _It screamed, _Run for Kate, run for answers, run for freedom! _The voices made no sense, and Sawyer hopelessly shook his head, trying to clear their influence from his mind so he could glare back to Hibb's. "How?"

And Hibb's _smiled_…

"Come and find out."

In seconds, Hibb's had spun and vaulted up onto the gantry of the funhouse. And before he could disappear fully, Sawyer casts desperate looks about. In the distance, he sees Kate roving through the crowd, lost, calling out for him. But if he goes to her, Hibbs will be long gone by the time he makes it inside the funhouse…

_Oh God Freckles, I'm sorry…you're freedom just isn't enough…_

With one last desperate glance at Kate, Sawyer spins into the shadows of the Funhouse.

* * *

"Kate –" Jack huffed to keep pace with Kate's manic walk, but she was past caring. Her mind was spinning away urgently with the kind of soul curdling despair that a lost child feels upon losing their parent at the mall. Faces whipped past in garish motion; screaming kids, painted clowns, exotic dancers, all hopelessly ominous now. _Could Agents really be here? Could this be a stake-out?_

And Jack's voice was falling away, falling far behind.

"_Kate wait – you have to stop!"_

Kate did what Kate did best; she ran. Ran for Sawyer, ran for answers, ran for freedom.

"_Kate – the cops!"_

And time seemed to grind to a final, gut wrenching halt as Kate stops… _and turns to see a squad of cops running right at her. _And in those fateful, dizzying seconds, she knows all is lost. Maggie has deserted her, her fugitive lockdown had never even ghosted her vision. Because of _him_. Because of her essential fear of losing _Sawyer –_

_Sawyer, you made me lose my head! _She cried furiously as the cops surround her. _Sawyer, you made me lose my mind!_

"Katherine Austin," The head detective clamps an iron hand around Kate's wrist, "I am arresting you on Murder 1 for the killing of Wayne Tanner. _You have the right to remain silent."_

* * *

_Mirrors._

Reflections refracting, twisting, contorted… _everywhere..._

Distant screams from the Drop 'O Death are all that link this hellish world to the funfair, and even they sound warped in here, twisted souls to match Sawyers twisted reflection… an old man. A scruff of graying beard, a lunatic mane of hair obscuring animal eyes… _Oh God I can't look at myself…how long has it been? _Sawyer tries never to look in mirrors, because lately, it seems the hollow eyed zombie who stares back has grown a little too rough around the edges, a little too crazy in the eyes. And it wasn't a roguish allure, or a charismatic wildness; oh no. This was _scary_ crazy. This was ghost seeing, paranoid delusional crazy. So he didn't look. But now, oh God _now_ he couldn't escape himself. The wreck of what he'd let himself become…_how did I get this fucked up?!_

Footsteps clattered up ahead through the closed down mirror maze… along with a running taunt… "Thank you for Duckett! He was an annoyance that I was glad to be rid of –"

"_He was innocent!"_ Sawyer cries with rising bile, "And so was I until I fucking met YOU! You ruined me! You ruined my _life_ –

That mocking laughter rose from nearby – Sawyer spun to face Hibbs as he sneered, "Your life was ruined long before I showed up. How old were you when your daddy shot your momma?"

The whip crack of Sawyer's fist connects with Hibb's jaw – and an almighty crack runs along the mirror, shattering it and gouging Sawyer's fist. With a bellow of pain and rage, Sawyer swings about in boiling frustration. "Goddamn you! Where are you! _Come out here and say this to my face –"_

But that lilting laughter is unperturbed by Sawyers angst, continuing his stream of thought uninterrupted. "And what was the name of that _confidence man?_ Now now, I know this one! Lets see… it wasn't Mr Sawyer, or Frank Duckett…"

Sawyer threw his head back and roared, "Get out here! _Quit HIDING!"_

And a delicious cackle bubbled up from the hidden depths of the mirror maze. "My my, you're getting tetchy in your old age, Sawyer!"

"_Hibbs I swear to God _– I'm gonna smash your lousy _brains_ in –"

"Don't shoot the messenger…" The syrupy voice made Sawyer want to puke, as it suggested; "You don't wanna kill me. You want to kill _him_. Anthony Cooper."

That name stung. Even though Sawyer tried desperately, desperately hard not to believe it, his blackness pounced on that name and tore it apart. _Anthony Cooper! Anthony Cooper! He's responsible! _Even in his state, Sawyer recognised a grisly truth; in murder, he would get justice. But Anthony Cooper wasn't a man. Not anymore. He was the Bogeyman who had screwed his mother on Betty the kitchen table, he was the end of Jimmy Ford, the beginnings of Sawyer… but he was also an _excuse_. He was someone to blame, something to believe in; like Santa Claus, or the Easter Bunny. When Sawyer was a kid, he'd had Megatron. Now obviously, Megatron never existed, except in Sawyers mind, where he would take the blame for all of Sawyers wrong doings. _Jimmy, did you spill that milk? Megatron did it. James Ford, did you break your Mothers newest saddle? Megatron did it. _Maybe it was only fitting that if Jimmy Ford had Megatron, Sawyer had Anthony Cooper. Someone to blame. Something to believe in…

But still, Sawyer saw Kate wandering lost in the crowds outside, and he needed to get back to her. Physically, spiritually, every way that counted… so he brought his bloodied hands to his face and cried helplessly; "I've changed! And I ain't falling for anymore of your poisonous lies, _you hear me?"_

There was a softly considered pause in the mayhem of the mirror maze, which seemed to stretch out until Sawyer wanted to tear his hair out, _scream_ to fill the void… when Hibb's finally said; "Yes… but you followed me in here, didn't you? You haven't left yet… why are you still here, Sawyer? If you don't believe…?"

And it came crashing down. The world he had so slowly built for himself through the months he had known Kate, brick by brick, piling the small defeats alongside the triumphs and rising above it all, all of it just came crashing down. Because faced with his bloody, broken reflection, the wounds of the past were torn wide open. They still stung and bled as deep as the day he had shivered beneath that bed and heard the gunshots…

"I hate you…" Sawyer whispers brokenly. To whom, he is never sure. His reflection, Hibb's, Anthony Cooper, his father… maybe they're all one in the same, in the end. Fucked up, messed up, lost. _"I fucking hate what you do to me…"_

"You know I'm not lying to you…" That insidious voice whispers from the maze. It seems as though it is coming from Sawyers own reflection, Hibbs is that close. But for a heart stopping moment, it seems as though all the black voices in Sawyers head have leapfrogged into reality, and are assaulting him from all sides…

"Why should I believe you?" He hisses hopelessly.

"You've got every reason to, Sawyer… or should I say, James?" The mention of his own name stuns Sawyer. They had never exchanged birth names; that was not the con-man way. _How did he know? HOW?! __"_ _James Ford_… on the run with his fugitive girlfriend from very, _very_ nasty people…"

On the mention of Kate, Sawyer's blood runs to ice. "How do you… How do you _know_ all this –?"

"That's for me to know…" Hibb's is achingly close now, those sinister words lilting right through Sawyer's broken reflection… "But you're in deep, my friend. The Dharma corporation seem to be way, way out of your con-man league…"

"They put you onto me…" The words fall from Sawyer's mouth in shock. Although he suddenly wonders in exhaustion why he should even be surprised; _Kate said they'd tipped off Jason too. How many more? How many MORE?!_

And still Hibb's is talking, "I'm sure the feds would be mighty interested to get a phone call from me. You're a wanted man, James… but it's not on the news. Did you notice? It's hushed up. But then, that's the scary thing isn't it? What they're not telling you. _What they're hiding…"_

"What are you _talking_ about?!" Sawyer pleads, but he knows. _Dharma know my fucking thoughts, don't they? _And so inside, Sawyer has a hellish feeling that they know his weak spots. They know what _he's_ hiding. An unquenchable desire for revenge against one man, and one man alone…

_Anthony Cooper! _The voices screech gleefully, _Anthony Cooper, Anthony CooperANTHONYCOOOOOOOPER!_

And still, Sawyer clings to Hibb's words, as the disembodied voice sighs, "Those things you have in your head? They're time bombs, Sawyer. They'll kill you. _But you have a choice._ You can die on the run, hunted like a dog… or you can free yourself. Freedom is a state of mind…"

And as the craziness and frustration threaten to overwhelm him completely, Sawyer laughs out loud, ragged. And he hates the way his words fly out with grief-stricken pain. "I can't ever be free! Not with this thing in my head!"

"You still don't get it…" That voice, so close now… so fucking close! And it whispers its secrets… "Dharma isn't holding you prisoner. _You're doing it to yourself!_ You always have. And as such, only you have the power to break free…"

"How…?"

"They feed off of your negative thoughts, experiences… so you have to come to terms with them. You know what you want to do. You want your freedom, Sawyer? Then break the hold that this man has over you. It's the only way…"

It made no sense… if Dharma had contacted Hibb's, why hadn't they sent him on a path of destruction like Jason? Why was Hibb's giving him the key to destroying Dharma's hold over him? "How do you know? _Dharma_ told you all this?"

"Letter was signed by a scientist. A J.P Garrett…?"

"Garrett…" God, the scientist had tried to get through to him on the flatbed truck that night. Maybe Dharma were blocking him from reaching Sawyer, so the sly scientist had gone to an outside source for aid… and found Hibb's.

_Garrett, why?! _Sawyer's mind screams in grief, _Why do I have to kill to be free?!_

Sawyer felt perilously close to the brink of shattering. Just shattering to dust and spending eternity blowing through these mirrored corridors of madness… and when he looks up, he sees the living, breathing Hibb's staring down at him with genuine concern. Maybe he was seeing James Ford for the first time, instead of Sawyer…

Hibb's extends an unassuming manilla envelope in the dark mirrored maze… _Freedom is a state of mind, _the voices whisper in confusion, as though scared by this concept… the envelope is cold in Sawyer's hands. And when he meets Hibb's eyes, he sees the older man relax… James is gone. Sawyer is reflected back at him now.

"What if it doesn't work?" Sawyer grits.

"I think you know it will…" Hibb's says softly, "Because you need something to believe in, don't you?"

_Kate, I wish you were enough… _

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